Shisno Chronicles: Friendship is Magic: The Return of Harmony
by nightelf37
Summary: Sequel to "Shisno Chronicles: Friendship is Magic". content also copied straight from FiMFiction. After more than a thousand years of imprisonment, Discord has been set free. It's up to the Elements of Harmony to stop him. But what will be Chronicle's role in this? Why does the cover image imply a fight? Let's find out. Reading the previous story first is required to understand.
1. The Spirit of Disharmony (TRoH, Pt 1)

This is in response to the reviews in the last chapter of Shisno Chronicles: Friendship is Magic.

To Gry17: Don't worry about that happening. Although there WILL be a statue he'll be breaking. As for an Element of Harmony, it will happen. In a sense. And not immediately after Discord. For EqG, Timerity will be doing the same thing asChronicle, but with Dusk Shine and Barbara. Regardless of the future of the Lunaverse collab, Blue Diary will not be involved. Record Keeper WILL be involved, but not too much as he's an alicorn OC (sometimes) and we all know the fandom's general response to that.

To Guest: As I've told Gry17 last chapter, theoretically, the world Inuyasha takes place in also has a Story Crew member. For the record, I have watched a couple of episodes, they even aired here in the Philippines. Why don't you make it instead? Please log in or send me an e-mail for extra details on writing in the Story Crew.

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nightelf37: Finally, it's time!

Pinkie Pie: Time for what?

nightelf37: My first Chronicle-centric 'arc'. While this story has had him and 'plays out' events from his POV, this one **centers on** him as he begins to endure just what is to come in this arc's events.

Pinkie: What does that mean?

nightelf37: It means that while the episodes "The Return of Harmony, Parts 1 and 2" focused on Twilight Sparkle, this fic will focus on Chronicle, the central OC for my series.

Disclaimer: I own only the following: My originally designed OCs, and anything that doesn't happen in the show proper.

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**The Spirit of Disharmony (The Return of Harmony, Part 1)**

_Previously on Shisno Chronicles: Friendship is Magic…_

_During the Grand Galloping Gala, Chronicle met a fortuneteller he was acquainted with, whose name was Moonbow Peek. She saw dark times ahead for him and his friends. He was told he has protection against it, but it would only make him feel worse. Victory is certain, but the personal cost for it made him doubt. Just what is this oncoming threat? Can it even be fought the same way he usually fights? We'll just have to see._

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Chronicle was having strange dreams for the past couple months, and they were getting more and more frequent. It involved a whacked-out Ponyville, an insane villain, and him apparently ticked off **so much** that he was now in a berserk state. At first, he was just hearing the events from a far off spot, but now he was actually seeing them. Well, as much as he could anyway since everything was a blur, including the sounds.

However, the last few seconds of the dream before inevitably waking up were somewhat clearer. From what little he could deduce, he was delivering some sort of final attack on the villain, and dedicating them to each of the Keepers of the Elements of Harmony. And their order was consistent: Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Twilight Sparkle.

There would then be a blood-curdling cry as he would deal the final blow. After that, he would either be in his blank dreamscape, or—more often—awake. Right now, he was outdoors, following some strange clouds. Far above, he could see his friend Rainbow Dash pursuing a pink cloud, en route to Sweet Apple Acres. From what he knew, clouds don't come in pink, and their precipitation definitely didn't come in brown.

_Is/Was the weather team, local or Cloudsdale, performing an experiment of some sort and did it go awry?_ he thought. "Hey!" he called one of the pegasi in the area as he followed Rainbow.

"Yeah?" asked one pegasus, which he identified to be Raindrops as she descended so that the two were side by side.

"Is the weather team performing an experiment of some kind?"

"No."

"Cloudsdale?"

"They're suffering a similar predicament."

"Did some mad scientist release a substance that would cause this?"

"How the hay should I know that?"

"Never mind. Thanks anyway." And with that, just as he reached Applejack's farm, Raindrops left.

Seeing Applejack herself at the cornfield, harvesting the crops, he quickly made his way to her. To his ire, more pink clouds moved in, and were bringing along their weird rain. As he reached her, Rainbow descended to them too.

"Rainbow Dash, what's goin' on with this rain…I mean, chocolate milk…I mean, chocolate-milk rain?!" asked Applejack as the pegasus hovered near them.

The unicorn stuck out a tongue, tasting a raindrop, and realizing she was right. "There's crazy weather all over Equestria!" Rainbow replied. "Cloudsdale's getting soaked by a major cola storm right now."

_There goes the mad scientist theory,_ Chronicle thought as the corn started to pop. _No wait, it's still plausible._

"But don't worry. I'm not leaving you 'til I get control of Ponyville," continued the pegasus before peeling out.

The unicorn then cast a spell. Instantly, any chocolate rain within a small radius around himself flew straight into his mouth, and down his stomach. Before Applejack could ask what the spell was for as he licked his mouth, one of the corn ears machine-gunned its contents straight into her face, knocking her back into the growing fluffy mounds.

He had picked up this 'rain-drinking' spell from one of the many spell books in the library. This was to make drinking the rain easier, after making sure it was potable. He also knows how to collect them to other 'points' aside from his stomach so as to collect it for later storage. As for why he learned it, it was, to be honest, from a simple case of boredom.

In another section of the fields, Pinkie Pie was blissfully diving among the popcorn. "Why would you want to stop this?" she asked no one in particular before licking the raindrops off her face.

Rarity then arrived shortly after and cleared her throat as Applejack surfaces. The elegant unicorn donned a violet raincoat and hat, as well as a saddle with an ornate blue umbrella attached to keep the storm off her. "I heard about your troubles, Applejack, and I came to see if there's anything I can do—without getting wet. Or dirty. Or out from under my umbrella."

"I'm afraid there's no fixin' this mess while staying clean, Rarity," Chronicle said as he then 'pulled out' his umbrella from "hammerspace" and followed her example.

Just then, another sound draws the three's surprised attention; the apples on a nearby tree suddenly grew to several times normal size. The weight of the gargantuan fruit caused this and other affected trees to bend over until their leaves nearly scraped the ground. One squirrel after another popped up from the leaves for an easy snack.

"Fluttershy, do somethin'!" Applejack called.

The animal expert, whom he didn't notice until now, was watching her rabbit Angel chomp into one of the apples. "Now, Angel, you really shouldn't—" In a trice, the four short white legs have sprouted hooves, became very skinny and horse-like, and grown to perhaps three times the length of hers. "No! It's not possible!" Other bunnies strode past on their own ridiculously long shanks. "I must be seeing things!"

"We all are, duh," snarked Chronicle. "This must be some sort of hallucination we're all in, be it by chemical or spell."

Just then Twilight Sparkle and Spike arrived, the former levitating a book so she can read from it. "Don't worry, everyone!" she said as she closed the book and tossed it away. "I've learned a new spell that'll fix everything!"

It took her only a moment to conjure up a beam from her horn and let fly, the sky dimming briefly from its brilliance. The popping corn ears, the monster apples, the flipped-out clouds—all took the full blast, and she topped it off with a radiating blue/purple shock wave and a flash of white light that washed out everything. As it faded away, the caster looked up, puzzled to see that…her spell had had no effect whatsoever.

"My failsafe spell…failed!" she gasped.

"Did you practice it prior to casting it now?" Chronicle asked.

"No."

"Then that's why it failed! How many times do I have to remind you to practice spells?"

She didn't answer him as she then wondered, "What do we do?"

"Uh, give up?" Spike suggested.

"Spike, Twilight will come up with something," Rarity said reprovingly as she walked over to them, then levitated the umbrella saddle off her own back and settled it on Twilight.

"Hmmm…time for Plan B." Twilight looked up. "Rainbow! Can you corral all those clouds in one corner of the sky?"

Said airborne pegasus was mired at a cotton-candy cloud several of the funky rabbits were nibbling at. After a quick shake to free herself and scare them off, she saluted and gets her wings in gear.

One fugitive cloud after another was swiftly rounded up to the surprise of Pinkie, who enjoyed wallowing in the chocolate precipitation until it moved away from her.

Step two. "Applejack! I need you to bring those high-strung storm clouds down to earth!"

Back into the sky, Rainbow was cutting tight circles around the mass of clouds to force them all together. Down below, Applejack twirled her lasso in her teeth and let fl.; Rainbow peeled out to stay clear of the loop as it dropped around the giant pink clump. Pinkie shifted position to stay in the rain and fill her mouth, but this trick left her high and dry again. "Hey! What happened?" she asked as the single weird thunderhead was dragged toward ground level.

Twilight, putting away the umbrella, then whispered to Fluttershy, whose face brightened as she grasped the plan; the yellow flyer addresses herself in a loud, slightly stilted voice. "Oh, dear! I hope that none of the animals see these delicious chocolate-filled cotton-candy clouds!" The (affected) critters perked their ears at these words as Applejack, finished tying the free end of her rope to a fence post to hold the clouds in place. "I'd hate to have to share them!"

On the other side of the mass, Pinkie is stuffing her face, otherwise cleaned up from her wallow in the puddles. "Ah! You and me both, sister!" she said before being instantly beset by a rush of animals that take her place at the all-you-can-eat candy/weather buffet, the speed of their charge knocking her backward. "Hey!" Her protest did nothing to dissuade the gorging critters.

As the rest gathered a short distance from the cloud, Applejack said, "And when y'all are done that, feel free to have some popcorn for dee-ssert!"

"It's dess-ert," Chronicle corrected.

"You see, Spike? You should never give up," Twilight told her assistant. "There's nothing we can't overcome if we all work together."

The sole stallion in the group furrowed his brows. "I got a feeling this is just the beginning, though."

Suddenly, Spike sucked in a huge, cheek-bulging breath and let it out in a green fiery blast that solidified into a scroll. Twilight picked it up and read it—Pinkie joining the group—then sucked in a sharp gasp, her eyes briefly popping in surprise.

"Come on, girls! Princess Celestia wants to see us all in Canterlot immediately!"

As everypony traded a properly worried look at this bit of news, Chronicle groaned to himself. _Oh no. I was seriously hoping it's just some mad scientist/magician. But if the Elements of Harmony are being called, either it's not one, or they're too dangerous it needs them…_

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Canterlot Castle…

The six Keepers of the Elements of Harmony, accompanied by Chronicle, threw open the main entrance as they made it to the entrance hall where Princess Celestia and Twilight stood together during the Grad Galloping Gala. They saw Celestia herself looking out one stained glass window at the main landing of its staircase.

"Princess Celestia!" Twilight called as the seven rushed inside. "We came as fast as we could!"

As the group stopped at the foot of the stairs, Celestia spoke with a slightly fearful urgency that stood in sharp contrast to her usual gentle tone. "Thank you, Twilight. Thank you all."

"Is this about the weather, and the animals' weird behavior? What's happening out there? Why isn't my magic working? Is there—" She studious unicorn was silenced by her teacher raising a gold-shod hoof.

"Follow me."

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The group followed Celestia as she led them down a corridor with stained-glass windows on both walls.

"I've called you here for a matter of great importance," the Princess told them. "It seems an old foe of mine, someone I thought I had defeated long ago, has returned." Fluttershy suddenly stopped for a better look at one particular window, then angled her head up toward the window itself. Chronicle noticed and turned to see what she was seeing. "His name…is Discord." While Fluttershy yelped in fear and darted ahead to rejoin the others, Chronicle gave a small gasp.

Depicted on the window was a long, winged, reptilian creature, none of whose body parts match each other, standing on its hind legs. Its tail was very long. Its head was a strange amalgamation shaped more like a donkey or mule than a pony, with a long neck, bushy eyebrows, one antler each from a goat and deer, a snaggle tooth in the wide-open laughing mouth, and a goat's beard protruding from its chin.

_A draconequus, full term draconequuscervuscaperleonaquilalacertavespertilio serpens,_ he thought as he rejoined the group as well. _Father has been warding them off of Hub Equestria ever since my family has started their mission. They're supposed to be so difficult that he has to call for assistance from the Story Crew if more than one is attacking._

"Discord is the mischievous spirit of disharmony," Celestia continued as she stood before them. "Before my sister and I stood up to him, he ruled Equestria in an eternal state of unrest and unhappiness."

She showed them one window depicting the creature manipulating an earth pony, pegasus, and unicorn on the ends of strings attached to marionette control crossbars. at the bottom of the window, pink flames burned below the ponies, and Chronicle could swear he heard screams of agony.

"Luna and I saw how miserable life was for earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns alike. So after discovering the Elements of Harmony…" She took them to another window, which depicted Discord, caught between the two circling princesses, and petrified. "…we combined our powers and rose up against him, turning him to stone."

"All right, Princess!" whooped Rainbow.

"I thought the spell we cast would keep him contained forever. But since Luna and I are no longer connected to the Elements…the spell has been broken." The group stopped as she walked on.

"No longer connected?" asked Twilight as they reached the end of the hall, which had a balcony above it, decorated with a multitude of varicolored tapestries.

"This is Canterlot Tower…" They now stood before a pair of closed double doors in a gold frame topped with a carving of a winged unicorn. A column and a unicorn sculpture stood to either side. "…where the Elements are kept inside since all of you recovered them. I need you to wield the Elements of Harmony once again and stop Discord before he thrusts all of Equestria into eternal chaos!"

"But why us?" Twilight asked as Pinkie zipped away. "Why don't you—"

"Hey, look!" she interrupted as she pointed to another window. "We're famous!"

They turned to see what was depicted; the six bearers of the Elements using their powers to bring down Nightmare Moon. Applejack was portrayed without her hat, and Chronicle was mysteriously absent.

"You six showed the full potential of the Elements by harnessing the magic of your friendship to beat a mighty foe," Celestia explained. "Although Luna and I once wielded the Elements, it is you who now control their power, and it is you who must defeat Discord!"

All seven gathered before her again, exchanging a few seconds' worth of uncertain looks and drooping ears before their usually-fearless leader found her resolve. "Princess Celestia, you can count on—"

"Hold on a second!" Pinkie interrupted. "Eternal chaos comes with chocolate rain, you guys. Chocolate rain!"

"Not. Worth it," Chronicle shut her up.

Twilight slid up to Celestia. "Don't listen to her, Princess. We'd be honored to use the Elements of Harmony again."

Stepping up to the closed doors, Celestia inserted her horn into a hole bored through the center of the gold starburst. As something naughty flashed in the mind of the sole stallion in the area, she hit it with a quick shot of magic and backed away. Vivid blue light shone around the sunburst's outline and spread along the seams that split the doors radially into six panels. Machinery began to grind as the camera zoomed out and two columns of three blue spots each lit up on the doors, one by one. The blue brilliance spilled outward from the doors, washing over Celestia, and one swift flash later they were standing wide open.

Inside the vault was a jeweled lockbox on a pedestal within. Rarity shuddered up on seeing it. "Oooooh…You can keep the Elements. I'll take that case!"

"Have no fear, ponies. I have total confidence that you will be able to defeat Discord…" On the end of this, she levitated the box forward. "…with these."

When the lid flipped open, the contents were framed in full detail: absolutely nothing. A round of gasps from the seven Ponyville residents shocked Celestia into letting it hit the floor. The thud echoed prominently in the silent hall.

Chronicle was the first to break the silence. "With… what, Your Majesty?" he asked, uncertainty in his tone.

Pinkie was the second to get any words out, in her usual cheerful tone. "Oh, well." She began to trot away. "If anyone needs me, I'll be outside in the chocolate puddles with a giant swizzle straw!"

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[A/N: Due to the video not being available, please look for (and envision) Digimon Adventure's second eyecatch.]

{Seven cards fly in from varying directions as if dropped onto a table, depicting the following in the following order: Twilight Sparkle, Chronicle, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy.}

{The seven cards then shine into white and form together into something else: A picture depicting the seven together, the mares with their Elements of Harmony. In the center is Twilight Sparkle. Clockwise from the top are Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, Chronicle (with his "magic horn blade" drawn), Applejack, and Pinkie Pie. The show's logo shows up on the bottom right.}

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Everypony was gathered around the empty box. "The Elements! They're gone!" Twilight said.

Celestia meanwhile was pacing about. "That chamber is protected by a powerful spell that only I can break! This doesn't make sense."

Suddenly, a fruity, malicious laugh asserted itself in the hall, giving way to a male voice whose unctuous, semi-playful tone did very little to disguise the suggestion of malevolence at its core. "Make sense? Oh, what fun is there in making sense?" Instantly, Chronicle drew his "magic horn blade"

Celestia instantly went serious. "Discord! Show yourself!"

Another contemptuous laugh rolled around the vaulted ceiling. "Did you miss me, Celestia?" The window depicting him pulling strings flashed, then the draconequus image began to move and speak in this voice. "I've missed you." He then leaped away, his form disappearing past the edge as if on a 'screen', and appeared in the next window—the ponies gathered around the jewels that represented the Elements. "It's quite lonely being encased in stone, but you wouldn't know that, would you? Because I don't turn ponies into stone!"

Chronicle gave an uncertain look at Celestia as the image ended up lounging against Fluttershy's panel, which he tapped with a claw. "Enough! What have you done with the Elements of Harmony?" the Princess demanded.

Discord was now in his own panel at the top. "Oh, I just borrowed them for a teensy little while." A snap caused the jewels to disappear from the center of the design.

Celestia stomped with one hoof. "You'll never get away with this, Discord!"

Discord just reclined on their pedestal. "Oh, I'd forgotten how grim you can be, Celestia. It's really quite boring."

Rainbow took offense at this. "Hey! Nopony insults the Princess!" She launched a flying charge at the window, but he disappeared an instant before she smacked into the glass. Once she got her eyes refocused and peeled herself loose, he reappeared—now large enough to block most of the picture. Chronicle just remained on the defensive, prepared to act on the slightest act of offense.

"Oh! You must be Rainbow Dash, famed for her loyalty—the Element of Harmony you represent."

"That's right! I'll always be loyal to the Princess!"

Discord vanished. "We'll see about that."

Rarity, standing before the window that depicted Celestia and Luna defeating him(but he was gone from the center), said, "I can't believe we're wasting our time talking to a tacky window."

He reappeared at its base. "The beautiful Rarity, representing the Element of generosity, if I'm not mistaken."

Applejack walked up. "So you know who we are. Big deal."

He grew to full size. ""Oh, I know much more than that, honest Applejack."

"You seem to know our strengths too," Twilight said.

He then popped over to the window of the six, appearing in small size atop Fluttershy's panel. "Yes, Twilight Sparkle. And yours is the most powerful and elusive Element—magic. Fluttershy's is kindness—" The yellow pegasus's eyes popped when she was mentioned. "—and Pinkie Pie's is a personal favorite of mine—laughter." Pinkie had a hoof to her mouth to stifle the giggles that mingled with his.

Twilight was naturally annoyed. "Pinkie!"

She began to laugh full force. "He's standing on your head!"

As a matter of fact, he was. He was dancing even, akin to a "shuffle". "And Chronicle," he continued. "Is the one guy in the group who makes up for his lack of Element of Harmony with remarkable fighting prowess and clear head." The stallion just twitched his eye a bit from this.

"Stop stalling, Discord!" Celestia cut him off. "What have you done with the Elements of Harmony?"

"Oh, so boring, Celestia, really! Fine, I'll tell you, but I'll only tell you my way."

He vanished with a flash, then began his riddle as he weaved among the mirrors.

"To retrieve your missing Elements,

Just make sense of this change of events.

Twists and turns are my master plan,"

He returned to the window in which he first 'came to life'.

"Then find the Elements back where you began."

One last flash left him in stained-glass immobility again, his unsettling chuckle echoing and dying out as Twilight, Applejack, Chronicle, and Fluttershy stepped up.

"Can we go home now?" the pegasus asked as the stallion recited the riddle in full to himself.

"What do you reckon he meant?" mused the earth pony. "Twists and turns and endin' back where we started?"

Twilight walked toward a window as she mused on the riddle as well. "Twists and turns…twists and turns…" She ended up at a spot that gave an excellent vantage point of the hedge maze. After staring out over the green walls and the gloomy gray sky, it hit her. "Twists and turns! That's it! I bet Discord hid the Elements in the palace labyrinth!"

"Good luck, my little ponies," Celestia said as she bowed to everypony, who bowed in return. "The fate of Equestria is in your hooves." The regal pony actually bowed twice, inclining her head so that her horn swung down close to each of Twilight's shoulders as if she were using a sword to knight her.

"Thanks, Princess. We won't let you down."

**[screen mode]**

{Screen shifts into black background with a blue column in the center that shows Chronicle's back.}

Chronicle: All right, everypony! {He turns around, showing a determined face as the blue column slims.} Let's do this!

{Six more columns of coat-matching colors fly in from the top or bottom, showing the others. Starting from the right is Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy, then Applejack. Starting from his left is Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity.}

Rest: Right!

{Barn door wipe to the seven ponies now outside the castle and in a hurry.}

**[end screen mode]**

"Twilight! Are you **absolutely** sure they're in the labyrinth?" Chronicle asked.

"Yes, I'm sure. Twists and turns, remember?"

"Yeah, but another answer came to me, and I was thinking of heading off there while I leave a couple of magical clones with you."

"We need you with us Chronicle," his charge protested. "If Discord could remove the Elements of Harmony from the vault, who knows what else he can do? If it comes to a fight, you're our best hope. Why not send clones to wherever you plan on going?"

"Because where I plan to go is too far for them to take without risk of dissipation. But I'll defer to your judgment for the time being, for I am your bodyguard." His face hardened. "Don't make me regret it. This is a crisis more serious than Nightmare Moon, and we have no room for errors."

Twilight gulped nervously at this, but her attention was redirected upon seeing the maze entrance, which was imposing and adorned with flying banners that adorn it. A collective gasp is heard from the mares as they all stopped before it.

Fluttershy was terrified. "W…we have to go in there?"

Rainbow walked forward. "Nope," she said as she flapped her wings. "Dopey Discord forgot about these babies!" She went airborne. "I'll just do a quick flyover and we'll have the Elements in no time."

_I have a bad feeling about this._ Chronicle's fears proved true when a sudden flash of light left no trace of "these babies" on her flanks. All her forward momentum then went bye-bye, leaving her to drop like a ton of blue bricks.

"My wings!"

Fluttershy promptly lost hers as well, prompting a yelp, and a double flash stripped both unicorn mares of their horns.

"Your horn!...My horn!" they both gasped, then screamed at the realization.

Chronicle braced himself for the loss of his own horn as well…but for some reason, it never came.

A ball of light suddenly appeared at the maze entrance, and solidified into Discord, who straightened his mismatched body up to full height as lightning forked across the sky. After his exultant laughter died out, he leaned down to point at the ponies with his lion-paw foreleg. His bushy eyebrows and goat beard are white, the eyes are beady and red with yellow scleroses, and one was slightly bugged out.

"You…you should see the looks on your faces! Priceless!" he said giddily, then giggled.

"Give us our wings and horns back!" Twilight demanded.

"You'll get them back in good time." He then teleport over to Applejack, then nudged her flank as he continued. "I simply took them to ensure there's no cheating." He slithered to the pegasi, then to Twilight. "You see, this is the first rule of our game—no flying, and no magic."

Rainbow was unnerved at this. "The…first rule?"

He rested on the nearest hedge, "The second rule is, everypony has to play, or the game is over—and I win." Suddenly, he noticed something and frowned upon seeing it; Chronicle still had his horn. "Strange. I was sure it would be gone." He 'slithered' over to the stallion's face and everypony else turned to face the two. Discord snapped his fingers, which was apparently supposed to make something happen, but it didn't. He tried again, but still nothing. After three more snaps, he then he moved even closer, at which Chronicle responded by drawing his "magic horn blade" and swinging it at him.

Discord however managed to dodge it, then with a look of irritation, he snapped his fingers and a flash of light came and went. Chronicle was now encased in a block of jelly, but there was a small dome of empty space around the unicorn. Everyone, even Chronicle, was surprised at this, though they showed it in varying levels. "Oh, now I see," the draconequus said.

"See what?" asked the stallion.

"For reason even I cannot comprehend, your boy friend seems to possess immunity to my powers." He then snapped his fingers again, and the jelly moved towards him, shoving Chronicle with it as his rear end met the food substance. When he stopped moving it, the unicorn tumbled. "**Some** immunity, anyway."

Twilight was quick to ask. "why didn't you tell us about this, Chronicle?"

"I'm just as new to this as you are!"

"Regardless…" Discord continued as he then hovered into the air. "You Chronicle are still under the rules. And since I can't actually stop you from using magic… should you actually use it to make crossing this maze easier, you all lose. Good luck, everypony! "

He then winked out with one last laugh, also dismissing the jelly, to Chronicle's relief and Pinkie's irritation as she was about to east it. Instantly, Fluttershy dropped into a fearful huddle on the grass.

"Never fear, girls," Twilight said as Chronicle helped the 'pegasus' up. "We have each other."

"Yeah!" Rainbow agreed. "Like Twilight said, there's nothing we can't overcome if we all stick together."

Applejack and Fluttershy traded reassuring smiles, and Pinkie and Rarity did the same while standing behind Rainbow. As they took up positions before the entrance, Chronicle had something to say. "All right, girls. Let's do this."

"Together!" the mares said as they all took one step ahead… Just as Chronicle realized something to his horror.

"WAIT!"

But it was too late. They were all startled into an assortment of panicked responses by the hedges that suddenly shot up from the ground to wall one off from the next, though Chronicle managed to stay with Twilight. As it was, they have been split up into six parallel lanes; in addition to that, another hedge had sprung up behind to cut off their retreat.

"Stay calm, girls!"

"Dammit, I figured this would happen!" cursed Chronicle.

"Everypony head to the middle as fast as you can and we'll regroup there!"

"Moving out!" Rainbow responded.

"See you in the center!" Rarity.

"Yee-haa!" Applejack.

"See you guys there!" Pinkie.

"WAIT!" Chronicle, louder this time. Thankfully they haven't took off yet. "Hold on a minute, girls. Given what we've seen Discord do, anything—and I mean **anything**—can happen! I'm sure he will trick you with his powers, and will stop at nothing to make us fail! So before we go, I want to make sure this is absolutely clear!"

"What?" asked Applejack.

"Stop for **nothing**, no matter how much it catches your attention. Stop for **no****_body_**, no matter what they say. Let nothing make you stray from your path. If you see me and I give the Signal, you will know it's **really** me."

The Signal was a trust system he 'established' ever since seeing that foreboding fortune from Moonbow Peek back at the Gala. It works by one of them saying a phrase specific to them, then he would whisper to their ear something they know nobody else knows that he caught via Surveillance. This was the first time they would actually implement it in action, though.

He would know if it the friend he sees is them using Surveillance. Also, he has a special sense that tells him if someone is disguising themselves via means outside clothes, posture, and mannerisms. "Applejack, am I clear?"

"Yeah!"

"Pinkie Pie!"

"Okie-dokie-lokie!"

"Rarity!"

"Crystal clear!"

"Rainbow Dash!"

"Loud and clear!"

"Fluttershy!"

No response.

"For Celestia's sake, Fluttershy, speak up!"

Her reply was faint, but from what little he could hear, he was able to tell that she understood.

"All right! Elements! Move out!"

With that Chronicle ran along the path, Twilight with him. Presumably, the others were on the move too, although he guessed that Fluttershy would stick back for a while before finding her nerve and going as well.

C—TS—A—RD—R—F—PP—PC—D—C—TS—A—RD—R—F—PP—PC—D

"What made you say all that Chronicle?" Twilight asked as they made their way through the maze.

"Let's just say story books often have words of advice in between the lines and leave it at that, okay?"

"Okay. I thought fighting was the only thing you're more experienced at than the rest of us. I didn't expect you know a lot more than that."

"Well, I did mention a couple of times my various adventures. I've traveled the world through Request Board requests and some of my past charges traveled around as well. Battling isn't the only thing I'm good at. It goes to show what you can learn when you see the world."

"I see." Twilight decided to change the subject. "Say, how are you immune to Discord's magic? From that dome of space around you while you were in the jelly, it seems to have a specific range that encompasses you and your immediate vicinity."

Chronicle turned away. "I…honestly don't know." _What did the Story Crew put on me without me knowing? And why didn't they tell me?_

"Oh."

Just then, they stumbled into some kind of puzzle in one of the hedge walls. It was one of those sliding panel types, where one has to slide them to form a picture. It was a three-by-three depicting Applejack. (1)

Before Chronicle could focus his aura on one panel, Twilight beat him to it by sliding them with her hoof, since she lacked hers. The stallion gave a sigh of relief, as he had difficulty dealing with that kind. In eleven seconds flat, it was instantly solved and a mild rumble ensued before stopping.

"Strange. I was expecting something else to happen," said Twilight.

"If my guess on Discord is right, it's that things never go as expected when it comes to this game of his." With that, they continued traversing the maze. All of a sudden however, as they were about to turn a corner, an image of Applejack flashed in his mind and his legs started to buckle, as if they were unable to hold his weight. Twilight was quick to steady him.

"What's wrong?"

Chronicle gave a sigh as his legs continued to buckle. "I haven't told you guys yet, but I think I have attained a special kind of sense, something like the Pinkie Sense."

"Seriously?"

"I have no other way of explaining it. I'm still getting used to it myself and so I won't be able to answer all your questions, but from what I'm able to deduce, an image of somepony, one of you six, flashes in my mind, then something in my body reacts, each different depending on the pony, and then whatever is happening to them then happens to me for a short while.

"For Fluttershy, I think my heart begins to beat out of rhythm. For Rarity, my eyes begin to feel sore, as if something hot was placed on them. For you, my horn sparks magic. And for Pinkie Pie, **my** tail twitches."

"What about Rainbow Dash?"

"I haven't experienced any signs for her yet."

"Applejack?"

"I think I just experienced it right now." Suddenly, a migraine came up in Chronicle's head and he began to try and rub it off. "Nnnh…"

"What's wrong?"

The feeling faded quickly as the two then turned the corner and resumed running, swearing they could hear voices. "This sign. I haven't experienced this before. I don't know what misfortune could have befallen her."

As they ran, a section of hedge to their right slid open like some sort of hi-tech door. While Twilight passed it before noticing, Chronicle instantly stopped at where it opened, turned, and gasped as his charge backed up to join him.

On the other side was Applejack in an empty clearing within the maze, but he could see something was wrong. Her entire form, hat included, seemed to take on a faded, washed-out tone. Due to her facing away from them, he couldn't tell if the same went for her eyes.

"Applejack! Thank goodness!" Twilight said as the two walked over to her. "I thought I heard voices over here. Who were you talking to?"

The farmpony glanced at them before speaking up. "I was talkin' to, uh…nopony! Nopony whatsoever." The movement of her head revealed that her eyes were faded as well. As soon as the last two words were out of her mouth, she cut her eyes from side to side and avoided looking at either of them straight on, all the while keeping her lips firmly clamped shut.

Twilight was in a state of great disbelief. "What?"

"Nothin'." Applejack passed them by. "Come on, uh, we best be goin'."

Chronicle furrowed his brows as Twilight spoke to herself. _Hmm…something's definitely wrong with her. And I bet Discord's behind it. But how do I fix this?This is beyond my capabilities._

C—TS—A—C—TS—A—C—TS—A—C—TS—A

As the now-trio continued on, for some reason, Chronicle was feeling a little uneasy around Applejack and it didn't seem to be fading away anytime soon. And so he now walked ahead of his friends as he scanned the hedges, ground, and sky for anything suspicious.

"Chronicle. I'm pretty sure you didn't have that…" She tried and failed to make a name for it. "…'Sense' of yours before meeting us. But…where did it come from?"

"Like I said, I don't know. But my personal theory is that I somehow acquired this… magical bond to the Elements of Harmony and its keepers. How or why I cannot say, but I'm guessing my indirect exposure to them when you girls activated them to stop Nightmare Moon is one factor. It's still a theory though."

"Oh." There was silence for a few more seconds before she had another idea. ""Hey, why don't you use…you know…"

He understood the message immediately; still walking, he took out Surveillance, but not all the way out of his pocket as he doesn't want Discord to know, and 'opened' the 'screen'. Everything seemed normal enough, but when he decided to check on Pinkie Pie, instead of what her camera is seeing, or even 'static', there was a red-and-yellow swirly pattern behind Discord's face and waggling lion paw.

"Ah-ah-aah… no cheating," he was taunting. "Ah-ah-aah… no cheating."

_What the ████?! He's __**hacked**__ into Surveillance?!_

"Chronicle?" Twilight asked. "What am I hearing over there?"

He turned to face them as he put it away and said, "Surveillance is not working. Somehow, he was able to hack into my cameras on you. Thankfully, the cams don't seem to be susceptible to his effects like me." Suddenly, after an image of Pinkie Pie flashed in his mind, his tail began to twitch, almost in the same manner as her when her Pinkie Sense goes off.

"Uh, is Chronicle bein' the new Pinkie Pie?" inquired Applejack.

"No," answered Twilight. "For some time now, he possesses some kid of…Sense like the Pinkie Sense that goes off whenever something bad is happening to us. Right now, from what he told me, something's happening to Pinkie." And then another migraine occurred in Chronicle's head and he put a hoof to his head to try and alleviate the pain. Despite this, he continued walking. "However, he can't seem to figure out just is apparently happening to her."

"Girls!" he suddenly gasped, the headache gone once again. "Follow me!" He started to gallop off, and the two mares followed suit, though Applejack seemed to do it with less urgency in her mind. By the time they caught up with him, he was in front of an entrance to a courtyard, which was barred by…balloons? And he was trying to burst them with 'shurikens', but to no avail.

The two of them reached him and looked curiously as he continued trying to burst them.

"Happy? I don't think so," Pinkie could be faintly heard. **Then** the balloons started to pop, finally revealing her. To Chronicle's worry, she looked…washed out, just like Applejack.

Twilight however didn't seem to notice. "Pinkie Pie!" she said as she galloped in. Are we glad to see you!"

"Oh, you are, huh? Why?" Pinkie scornfully replied as she trotted past her. "Need a good laugh?"

"Pinkie?" The not-so-pink pony exited past Applejack and Chronicle, who stayed at the entrance. Twilight trotted back to them. "What do you suppose has her so upset? It's not like her."

"I didn't notice anything strange about Pinkie," Applejack instantly replied, doing her shifty-eye bit again before walking out.

"Weird." She then headed off, Chronicle following. "Better pick up the pace before the stress of this gets the better of all of us."

"I don't think it's just stress," the stallion said as he frowned at this revelation. "Something is definitely going on. And I'm certain Discord is behind this. Didn't you see how different they looked?"

"No."

"What?!" Before she could answer her, he turned away, thinking, _Did Discord influence her vision or perception? It must be._ He had no evidence to this matter, but he had a feeling that was the case. And that he might actually be more right than he thought.

C—TS—A—PP—C—TS—A—PP—C—TS—A—PP

Chronicle began distancing himself a bit further from his friends as he continued leading the way. He stopped at a fork in the path they were currently on, seeing three potential ways. As his friends caught up to him, he cast a spell and summoned three magical clones near him. Unfortunately for him, three bolts of lightning emerged from the paths and instantly vaporized them, startling the unicorns, though the earth ponies seemed unfazed.

"Well, there goes scouting ahead," he grumbled in disappointment. "Which path do you suggest we should take? And **no** splitting up."

Twilight took this in consideration before finally deciding… "Right." As the four took the right-hoof path, just as they turned two corners, an image of Rarity flashed in his mind and his eyes felt like hot coals were shoved into them. Of course, he cried out in pain.

"What's up with him?" demanded Pinkie.

"It's another sign," Twilight explained. "Chronicle has ability that works like your Pinkie Sense, except it predicts something bad happening to any of us. Right now, it seems to be that something's going to happen to Rarity." Just as she finished her sentence, the stallion doubled over as another migraine took him. Despite this, he continued walking. However, it could be seen that it was taking its toll as this headache lasted longer than the last two. "Chronicle!"

The instant she called his name, the headache cleared, though he was left a bit woozy. "Don't worry. I'm okay." He then noticed that they were now in front of a rock wall. On it was a series of sliding panels on a wide space, rhombus-shaped symbols akin to Rarity's cutie mark, and a rod seemingly stuck to another panel. It reminded him of a puzzle he used to play back home called _sokoban_.

"Now how do we solve this thing?" asked Twilight. As it was, the puzzle was too big for her to complete by hooves alone.

"Leave it to me." Using his telekinesis, Chronicle used the panel-with-a-stick to move the "box" panels into the "marked" spaces. In twenty seconds, the second he placed the last "box" onto the last "mark", the wall started to crack, then it collapsed in a belch of dust, revealing—

"Rarity! Are we glad to see—" She cut herself off in shock as she and the others saw that the ex-unicorn—now faded as well—was looking greedy and… "Why are you carrying a humongous boulder?"

Rarity flipped it off her back, then said, "What do you mean, boulder?" She then started stroking it. "This big, beautiful, bedazzling rock is a diamond! And it's all mine." She then zips up with it on her back. "Keep your envious little eyes off it! I found it and it's mine, fair and square!"

She began to haul it away, followed by Applejack and a hunkered-down Pinkie, and Twilight's and Chronicle's concern grew by a few orders of magnitude as they moved out.

_Things are getting worse. We have to stop Discord as soon as possible._

C—TS—A—R—PP—C—TS—A—R—PP—C—TS—A—R—PP

As the group continued walking, Chronicle no longer distanced himself from them. Now, he made sure the boulder with them impeded them as little as possible. Without her knowing it, he cast a "decrease weight" spell on the boulder.

"Dammit," he said to himself as he now 'led' the group with Twilight beside her. "I receive a headache, then we encounter a lying Applejack. I get another, and then we see a grumpy Pinkie Pie. Another headache later—granted, a longer one—and we see Rarity with her big rock."

"It's a diamond!" Apparently, she heard him.

"Which is a shiny and precious rock, but a rock nonetheless. I don't think this is all just a coincidence. I think—no, I'm sure Discord is behind their changed behaviours, Twilight."

He then paused in his step as he felt his heart beat faster than normal and an image of another friend flashed in his mind, filling him with intense worry. "Oh no. We have to hurry and find the others before—AAAGH!"

Instead of a mere migraine, it was something he could only describe as a mental attack. And this 'attack' forced him to rear up as he put his front hooves to his head, trying to contain the intense pain. Three seconds later, it was over and he fell to the ground.

"Chronicle! Are you okay?!" gasped Twilight.

"He's fine," said Applejack, uncaring.

"Yeah. I'll be," Chronicle agreed as he righted himself. "If my guess is right. Another of our number has fallen, and I think she has been changed with brute force…" His eyes widened on seeing something at a dead end. Immediately, he got up, and ran straight for it. On reaching it, he saw on the wall was a space he figured was for placing jigsaw puzzle pieces and on the ground were said pieces depicting—

"Whats going on?" his charge asked as she and their friends walked over to him.

"No, no, no, no, NO!" He entered a state of panic as he began to 'pick up' the pieces and began completing the puzzle. Several times he 'dropped' a few, only to pick them up again as he frantically put them all together. In thirty-seven seconds, he finished the puzzle. The instant the final piece was placed, the dead end retracted into the ground, revealing—

"No… no… no…" he sputtered out, his hearing and sight turning blurry. Before he passed out from the revelation, he had time for one depressing thought. _They got her._

C—TS—A—R—F—PP—C—TS—A—R—F—PP—C—TS—A—R—F—PP

Eyecatch (picture-type) - The "core" Timer family posed together. In the center are a stern Record Keeper (in his earth pony form) with a golden aura and a beaming Ebony Spell ready to cast an ice spell. Positioned below them are their children. From left to right, Mystic Wand casting a fire spell, Timerity with a hoof up and her "cat claw" spell in action, Chronicle with his "magic horn blade" drawn, and Blue Diary hovering with his swords ready. The show's logo is seen on the lower left. (2)

C—TS—A—R—F—PP—C—TS—A—R—F—PP

Chronicle slowly came to…and found himself being dragged by the tail, which was held by a lasso.

Once he was completely awake, he saw that it was Twilight pulling him instead of Applejack, and the former unicorn seemed to be carrying the boulder in addition to that.

"Must…find…Rainbow Dash," he heard Twilight say in a grunted tone, "As a team…we're…unstoppable. Rainbow Dash won't let us…down."

"Huh?" he managed to sputter out as he quietly slipped out of the loop and got himself upright.

"You're awake!" Twilight gasped weakly as he caught up to them, then turned to face her.

"Let me help you with that." He cast another "decrease weight" spell on the boulder.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome." He turned to face ahead again, only to see their 'changed' friends. They had found Fluttershy, but her appearance stung something fierce in him and he couldn't afford to look at her and thus turned back to Twilight. "Please tell me this is all a nightmare, I can't go on with **her** being so nasty. Please oh please wake me up."

"Chronicle, I truly wish this were all a nightmare, I really do. But I need you with me. More than ever. If Discord's really as powerful as he shows himself to be, you and Rainbow Dash are our only chance if it comes down to a fight, you especially since you're somehow immune to his magic."

"Yeah…" Just then, he felt a pulling sensation on his back. Notably, for some reason, he realized that it was on the part where his wings would protrude from were he a pegasus. It felt like invisible wings he knew he doesn't have were being pulled. "Oh no. The last sign."

"Rainbow Dash?"

"Yeah. She's next." Right after that, he felt another headache, but he didn't try and massage it off as he stopped walking and grunted.

"Oh, is Chronicle actually hopelessly frail on the inside?" once certain voice teased. This voice made him feel worse.

"Stop it, Fluttershy," Twilight scolded.

Once the headache finally stopped, he spoke in a quiet and despaired tone. "We're too late."

"What's too late?"

"He's got Rainbow Dash."

"Who?"

"Discord. Who else?"

"How do you know?"

"I don't. But I can't find any other culprit. Unfortunately, there's nothing more we can do for her."

"Well, looky there," said Applejack as the two still-normal ponies caught up. "Rainbow Dash is flyin' away. She's abandonin' us!"

"Now I know that's a lie," Twilight said as she flipped the boulder off her back and looked up, though, she gasped as she (and Chronicle) found that the suddenly dishonest farmer was telling it straight for once; indeed, Rainbow (faded like the rest) was soaring overhead and out of the maze to disappear into the clouds. "How can it be?"

"Game over, man, game over." Chronicle sunk deeper into despair as the entire maze shook and a layer of even darker gray clouds moved in to cover every square inch of sky. Blocks of hedges swiftly retracted into the ground, throwing up curtains of dust in all directions. When these cleared, the group found themselves in the middle of a wide tract of bare earth.

"Well, well, well," Discord said as he emerged from the dust. "Somepony broke the "no wings, no magic" rule." A finger snap put Twilight's and Rarity's horns and Fluttershy's wings back where they belong. "Game's over, my little ponies!" He leaned over Twilight for a moment. "You didn't find your precious Elements." He produced a pink umbrella that meowed softly when he opened it—the canopy opening upside down on the shaft, so that it would catch rain instead of letting it run off. "Looks like we might be due for a big old storm of chaos."

Lightning ripped the sky as he laughed crazily and Twilight stared in total disbelief. As for Chronicle, he was now in a sorry state as he stared blankly into space. _If the Elements of Harmony cannot stop him, there's nothing we can do. Well, I can call for something to take care of this, but I would break protocol if I do it. Will it be worth the risk?_

Discord continued laughing even as he then 'put away' his umbrella, then fell all over himself before a confounded Twilight as he eared drooped and her face ready to hit the floor.

Pinkie suddenly popped up in front to address him very sourly. "And what are you laughing at?"

The draconequus wiped a tear from one eye. "Oh, you ponies are just the most fun I've had in eons!"

She got in his face and poked him with a hoof. "Well, quit it! You'd better think before you laugh at the Pink…ie Pie!"

At Chronicle's peripheral, if he were noticing it, Rarity was now guarding her boulder—oh sorry, diamond. If he were listening too, he would have been hurt at what Fluttershy said.

"Oh, yeah? Well, ha, ha!"

Pinkie zipped over to her. "Quit it!"

"No. Ha, ha!"

Pinkie covered her ears. "QUIT IT!"

"No. Ha-ha-ha, ha, ha!"

Meanwhile, Applejack sidled out from behind the boulder. "Uh, Rarity?" The unicorn wheeled to face her. "This here diamond of yours?" She traced along its surface. "Twilight said we should split it six—no, seven ways since we, uh, found it together."

Rarity just hit her with a flying kick. "Hai-yah! Try it, punk! He's mine! All mine!" She threw herself at the dishonest pony, forcing her to back up past Twilight before a flurry of strikes.

"Girls, why are you all acting like this?" she asked. "We need to stick together!"

_How can she be so dense?_ Chronicle thought as he tilted his head to the ground and covered his ears so as not to hear Fluttershy speak such harsh words. _It's obvious that Discord's involved. Why isn't she seeing it? I bet he muddled her perception along the way. That or only I can see it due to what I really am._ He looked up and glared at the draconequus, who was now sitting in a row of movie theater seats with a box of popcorn.

"It's just too entertaining," he said as he ate.

"Stop it, Discord!" Twilight said. "You're not playing fair!"

"I'm not playing fair? Perhaps we haven't met." He stood up. "I'm Discord. Spirit of chaos and disharmony?" He leaned into her face. "Hel-looo?" Then he backed off and returned to his seat, examining the claws on his lion foreleg.

"How are we supposed to find the Elements of Harmony when you took away the labyrinth before we could get to the end?!"

Her query brought a slightly surprised look from him. "Oh, wait. Did you…" He started to guffaw. "How funny! You thought the Elements were **in** the labyrinth?"

As he and Twilight disappeared in a flash, the riddle he provided came to Chronicle's mind.

_To retrieve your missing Elements,_

_Just make sense of this change of events._

_Twists and turns are my master plan, _

_Then find the Elements __**back where you began**__._

It finally came to him as he was snapped out of his slump. He was willing to consider it as a Plan B before, but now he was absolutely sure. The Elements of Harmony were in Ponyville! With that answer in mind, and with no time to waste, he teleported without a word. As that happened, Applejack saw him do so, and would tell Twilight that he had abandoned them just as Rainbow did.

C—TS—A—RD—R—F—PP—D—C—TS—A—RD—R—F—PP—D

Chronicle emerged at the entrance to Canterlot, but whatever it was now he would never know as he was focused on getting to Ponyville. There were reasons he decided to go off on his own. One, he realized he wasn't that much of a team player. Two, he couldn't stand being with whoever had 'replaced' Fluttershy, not to mention the rest of their friends. Three, he didn't think the Elements would work with their current bearers. And four, he was mad at Twilight for her drastic mistake.

_Dammit, Twilight. Why didn't you think the riddle through completely? I asked you if you were completely sure, and you said you were. Now, thanks to you, our friends have fallen to Discord's magic._

She wasn't the only he was mad at though, aside from Discord. He was also mad at himself, for not being fast enough to stop them from going in. For not being assertive enough to keep opposing her in her plan. For not being fast enough to save his friends from Discord's mind-altering spell he was sure he used.

He wouldn't admit it to himself, but given reason number three, he has losing faith in the Elements. He was going to take matters in his own hooves.

He was currently using a combination of running and long range teleportation to get there. However, he was thrown off when after emerging from a teleport it was suddenly nighttime. He immediately 'braked' at that, almost thinking he accidentally traveled across time, and was lucky to do so as several banana peels blossomed all over the road. And they were all fresh. With that in mind, he then continued running—and didn't slip one bit.

"Darn it, I thought that would get you," a familiar voice came.

Chronicle didn't turn as he addressed Discord, who was jogging with bunny slippers that barked with every step as he could see from his peripheral. "My feet are more steady than anypony's," he replied. "Also, you used the 'wrong' bananas."

"And what exactly are the 'right' bananas, hmm?" the draconequus asked as he decided to 'sail' right next to the unicorn, who teleported away in response. He teleported right for where he emerged though—as the sky turned into day again.

"You figure it out. Now leave me alone." He launched a 'shuriken' at Discord, who casually dodged it.

"Oh, you're just like Celestia. So grim."

"I am nothing like her!" He teleported again, only for it to turn into night by the time he re-emerged. And Discord managed to follow him still.

"Of course you're not." He snapped his talon and the path ahead turned into an ice course. And the sky turned into night again. "Watch your step."

The unicorn responded by jumping, 'taking out' his river serpent-scale shield from "hammerspace" underneath him instead of beside as usual, and landing on it as he entered the ice path.

"Ooh." The draconequus was impressed with Chronicle's course of action and his suddenly revealed expertise in ice surfing. He decided to mix things up a bit by 'conjuring' all sorts of silly obstacles. It turns out the unicorn didn't have that much skill in ice surfing after all as he just blasted through anything that needed more than just hanging on. Getting bored, he decided to teleport away to mess with somepony else.

As much as he hated Discord right now, Chronicle had to admit that the ice course was fun. That mood instantly ended upon finally seeing Ponyville.

It was now in a state that would make any "seventies" surrealist painter swear off anything stronger than orange juice. Trees and buildings were on floating midair islands. the town square pavilion was completely uprooted and hovering upside down. Bright pink water was in the stream at the border. Separate pastel blue and pink checkerboard patterns covered different stretches of ground. Houses were plunked on crazy-quilt hills. And there were clouds over the whole town, but only one section was getting rained on; a faded lime-green sky.

At the sight of the drastically changed town, he remembered his 'task' and made a sworn oath to himself. "If it's the last thing I do, Discord will go down for this. That's a promise!"

**To be continued…**

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(1) The reason I put in puzzles is my 'justification' on why Twilight was waiting at certain areas when she should logically be on the move still, so I settled for this.

(2) While I did break off from the traditional points where the 'commercial' breaks in the episode would take place, this is because this is not Twilight Sparkle's tale; it's Chronicle's.

nightelf37: In case you're wondering if Chronicle's being OOC here, let me tell you that very dire times can change an individual. And that he has traces of being a Mood Swinger. Also, Discord didn't actually hack into Surveillance (it, like Chronicle, is immune to his effects), but just alter the space around the cameras and give that illusion.

See ya on Third!


	2. Chronicle's Promise (TRoH, Pt 2)

nightelf37: This is the moment I've been waiting for for so long. I've done a lot of work on it ever since watching the episode and finally, **finally** I get to show it to all. I regret nothing at all and I'm glad to get this out of my mind.

The following will appear in this chapter, I apologize if you don't like these:

(Literal) Discord-bashing

Seemingly irrelevant battles

Possible overpowering of some characters

Start of a Mane 6/OC shipping

Warning: A bit more censored swearing than usual. And serious use of the D-words. Please keep all negative remarks to yourself; I am perfectly aware of the mistakes I have done.

Disclaimer: I own only the following: My originally designed OCs, and anything that doesn't happen in the show proper.

I was going to go for something a bit more negative, but decided to go with this current title. I think it works well.

New syntax

_"word"_ - spoken through the other end of Surveillance

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**Chronicle's Promise (The Return of Harmony, Part 2)**

Putting away the shield he used to 'surf' down Discord's impromptu ice course, Chronicle made his first steps into the now-wacky Ponyville. At first glance, anyone would think he was simply wary, but he was also ready to cast a spell at a moment's notice. His 'mission', to find anybody who is not corrupted by Discord, and see if he can amass substitute Bearers of Harmony. Twilight Sparkle was still normal, and so he would look for four other ponies—and they don't have to be ponies—to stand in for the missing ones. Obviously, he himself would be one of the stand-ins as well.

His first encounter came in the form of Pokey Pierce. Expecting anything now that he knew Discord was here, Chronicle drew his "magic horn blade". From what he could see, Pokey wasn't just in a washed-out tone just like his friends, he was without a doubt completely grayscale. And he responded by forming a giant drill-shape around his horn (mysteriously, his aura remained its color), then aimed it at the normal unicorn with full intent to ram him.

"Oh great," Chronicle groaned to himself.

Pokey started off in a full gallop, and if he were to reach his target… well, he would never find out as Chronicle did a sidestep flash-step, then slashed at him as he passed by. The attack inflicted enough pain to cancel his spell and be knocked unconscious without drawing blood.

_I'm lucky the corruption didn't keep his mind straight, if he was so to begin with._ He promptly cast a barrier around himself—and repelled a kick from behind by both Caramel and Lucky Clover, who were also corrupted. Turning around, he swiftly put them down the same way he did Pokey.

Nopony else attacked him after that (for the time being) as he then dispatched three magical clones to look around. Unfortunately, as they wandered, they saw that nearly everypony was…for lack of a better term, corrupted. Bon Bon and Heartstrings (no wait, it's Lyra Heartstrings now, since she went for an official name change) were in a very heated argument. Golden Harvest was hiding in a corner, looking very timid and scared. Cheerilee was chasing Snips and Snails, ruler in her mouth as if about to smack them. Twist, Silver Spoon, and another unicorn filly were tormenting Diamond Tiara. As for the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Apple Bloom was singing, Scootaloo was making stuff, and Sweetie Belle was dancing.

Chronicle frowned at all this. _Hnnh…first things first. I gotta find Mystic Shield. If the Elements of Harmony need to involve friends, there's no other better one than him. At least with me_ His search was interrupted when he heard sobbing. He turned and noted that it was coming from a house. Derpy Hooves's to be exact. And the door was left ajar. _Dinky._ Cautiously, he creaked it open, and saw the unicorn filly.

She looked really dejected, but seemed to be normal in the dim light… until he cast a simple illumination spell. She was actually corrupted as well, and in front of her was a simple crayon drawing torn in half. When Chronicle walked up to it and picked up the pieces, he saw that they read "I LOVE YOU MOMMY!" and showed the two of them together.

His first impulse was to promise to deck whoever did this (Discord). His second was to ask her, "Dinky, who did this?"

The unicorn filly let out a sniffle, then answered, "Mommy. She doesn't love me anymore."

These words drove a needle into his heart, which gave him another drive to stop Discord. _He'll pay for this._ He was about to leave and continue searching, but felt bad in simply leaving the poor filly without a word. "Don't worry, Dinky. I'll get her back." He wished he could've provided better words, but he needed to hurry.

The moment he exited the house, he was relieved to find Berry Punch, who was thankfully normal, if quite panicked. "Berry Punch! I'm relieved to see you're all right!"

However, the earth pony didn't seem to notice him as she ran off. "Ruby! Ruby! Where are you, Ruby?! Ruby Pinch!"

Chronicle followed her in an attempt to reach out to her. "Berry!" He ended up chasing her for a good minute. When she turned a corner however, as he did so too, what he saw caught so much of his attention that he didn't notice her run the other way.

In front of him were Daisy, Lily (but not Rose), the Mayor, Amethyst Star, Twinkle (changed her name to Twinkleshine), Medley, Cloud Kicker, and Raindrops. They were all corrupted by Discord, and they looked like an angry mob.

"Get him!" the Mayor declared.

Not wanting to use up too much of his magic, and having no time to deal with them, Chronicle decided to run…only for that option to be suddenly unavailable as Cherry Berry, Sea Swirl, Shoeshine, Noteworthy, Rainbowshine, and Merry May closed in from the other side. Of Berry Punch there was no sign. Slowly, they began to surround him, even as he drew his "blade".

Long range teleportation was too risky as since Ponyville has been changed, he would have no clue as to whether or not he would end up 'splinching' with something, resulting in a "telefrag". _No choice, then._ Chronicle prepared himself as the mob made as if to dog-pile him.

C—T—AS—LH—GH—BB—AB—SS—D—DH—MM—M—DT—S—S—CK—MM—D—L—PP—C—T—DT—SS—S—SB—BN—C—LC

Elsewhere…

After seeing a trio of tutu-clad buffaloes and a googly-eyed mare who was flicking her bottom lip with a hoof while floating by with help from the propeller beanie pass by, another Chronicle made his way to Ponyville's hospital, which had finished construction just two months ago.

He stopped short of the entrance, a dark thought entering his mind. _A medical pony is a good thing to have, but if they have been corrupted…_ Disturbing images of mad doctors and killer nurses flashed before his eyes. Before he could run, a creepy voice came from right behind.

"Prepare for your examination!" Nurse Redheart jammed a giant syringe right onto Chronicle's back…and he instantly vanished.

At a tree a fair distance away from the hospital, Chronicle gave a sigh of relief as he saw the corrupted nurse whip her head around in confusion. "Figured this would happen."

Suddenly, he glimpsed something that was **not** gray apart from the ballerina buffaloes and the googly-eyed mare he decided to dub as Screwball. Using an enhance vision spell he picked up from Bullseye, he saw that it was a pale turquoise pegasus mare with vanilla hair, carrot orange eyes, and a cutie mark of two lightning bolts. Wind Whistler, also known as Sassaflash.

His hopes lifted for even a bit, he followed where she was going. Unfortunately, upon glancing to his left, he saw that Redheart has spotted him and has rallied a couple more medical staff. _████. I'm glad this isn't Silent Hill. No Field Op sent there ever returned alive._ He hurried as the doctors, nurses, and medics began their pursuit. Unfortunately, that was his last act as he saw Parasol—corrupted—slam into his face…dissipating him.

C—LB—P—NR—C—LB—P—NR—C—LB—P—NR

Back with the mob…

Chronicle was panting somewhat heavily, surrounded by all of his defeated foes. None of them were dead or have any lasting crippling injuries, just down on the checkerboard ground unconscious. He was skilled like that, because he knows killing will not only be bad for his image, it would scare his pacifist companions more than his sometimes-violent methods already do. That and he 'set' his "magic horn blade" to "phase through", which does exactly that and leaves his targets feeling as if he really cut through them, but without the wounds and damaged internal organs. The only things affected would be the nerves, which respond to the pain he would inflict.

After getting his bearings, he took a good look at his surroundings. Locating the spa, he made his way there and entered it. Unfortunately, it was very dark inside, just like the Hooves household where he found Dinky. He knew very well that darkness often can conceal danger, so he cast an illumination spell from his horn…then, as he walked forward for a few seconds, put it on full power in an instant, blinding anypony who might've attacked him in the dark.

"I've dealt with plenty of assassins before, even though I'm not usually the target," he decided to call out.

The lights were turned on and he found himself confronted by the Blossom twins, both corrupted, Lotus with a couple of acupuncture needles and round basalt rocks ready to throw, and Aloe wielding a pair of cucumber shaped devices (back massagers) and standing on her back hooves. The 'weapons' were vibrating, ready to make him feel like mush on contact. The two didn't seem to be affected much by the flash he did.

_Acupuncture needles? How the hay do earth ponies apply them on their patients?_

He didn't have enough time to consider it as both masseurs went in on the attack. He blocked them off with a dome barrier around himself, then blasted them with magic shots, but they were too nimble and easily dodged them, doing flips all the while. He swiftly put an end to this by a four-step plan. First, after making it so that the barrier doesn't follow him, he expanded it and let the twins enter but not exit it. Second, he flash-stepped out of his force field's bounds. Third, he compressed the barrier until it slammed the two together so hard it knocked the wind out of them. And fourth, he knocked them both out with a slash of his "magic horn blade". (1)

With that taken care of, he left the spa, and continued on his way. At that point on, there were no more attacks on him. In a few minutes, he reached Mystic Shield's Self-Defense Academy For Unicorns, which was miraculously not modified in the slightest like the adjacent houses, which were apparently turned into scenery flats like the cardboard cutout ones set up in stages. Still, that could only possibly mean that the inside was changed. Steeling himself, he threw the doors open, thinking he was prepared for what was beyond them.

He was wrong.

The inside of the dojo part were painted in gaudy pastel colors, the tatami mat was turned into a chocolate milk jacuzzi, there were various items strewn all over the edges (all of them dry), and in the far end of the pool was Mystic Shield, completely normal, relaxed, and looking like Chronicle had caught him with his hoof in the cookie jar.

"Um…I can explain," he said to his flabbergasted and understandably furious co-teacher.

"You better have a good one," the blue unicorn replied as he entered and closed the door behind him—just as Twilight Sparkle and company (minus Rainbow Dash) arrived.

C—L—A—C—L—A—C—L—A—C—L—A

A minute later, at the edge of town…

Passing by an upturned TARDIS (which he suspected Doctor Whooves was hiding in for whatever reason instead of perhaps, say, stopping Discord himself) dangling at the tip of a rooftop, Chronicle (this the real one) made his way to the Everfree Forest with the intent to ask for Zecora's help.

Prior to this, after checking out Sweet Apple Acres and seeing a dancing Granny Smith, Big Macintosh digging and acting like a dog, and flying pigs, he had to face off—one by one—against karate black belt Elphaba Trot (who had a higher _dan_ than Rainbow), Wonderbolt Skyla, aikido black belt Ebon Belt, and martial arts master Sensei. All but one proved difficult to throw off and incapacitate.

Elphaba proved swift enough and daring enough to actually successfully swat his "shurikens" but went down in a minute. Skyla showed him that the Wonderbolts weren't **just** a show team, in spite of their…failure to save Rarity during the Best Young Flyer competition, and took at least a hundred seconds before he finally knocked her out. Ebon, whose martial art did not have any offensive maneuvers, was easier to defeat.

Sensei however, had experience in anti-sword and anti-shot combat, and was not only a master of all martial arts (the ones compatible with ponies anyway), but rather savage in his attacks thanks to Discord's corruption. It was only thanks to a lucky fallen flower pot that he was able to incapacitate the expert, and that was while distracting him with "shurikens" as he charged zigzag.

To his mild surprise, the "unnatural" forest was unchanged, except for the cotton candy clouds dousing him with chocolate rain, which he took the chance to imbibe with his "rain-drinking" spell. There were **a lot** more poison joke than usual though, and he had to make a bridge out of panel barriers to cross over them. While he turning into a mare again wasn't much of a problem for him, he learned that poison joke doesn't always give the same 'ailments' every time for each pony.

Finally, he reached Zecora's hut. Unfortunately, it seems to be abandoned, as if the zebra had fled hastily. When he entered the hut, he saw that the cauldron was gone, as were many of her many brews, although a few stuff remained, including the 'hello' and 'welcome' masks, and a note on a table propped against a bottle of ether.

Curious, he picked up the note and read it, amazed that Zecora had learned how to write in their language so quickly.

_To whom it may concern,_

_I have sensed a dangerous force headed this way, so I have decided to leave to find a safe refuge. I shall return once this—as you would call it—"blows over". If it hasn't been taken already, the bottle you see with this note is an ether bottle, which will cure a unicorn of overchanneling. Use it well._

_Zecora_

"Huh. I expected Zecora's writing to rhyme just as much as her speaking." Chronicle then saw the ether bottle, and decided to take it, storing it in "hammerspace". _I certainly need this._ With that, he left the hut and made his way back to Ponyville, a little more desperate than before; he seriously hoped the zebra could help him, but now…

Upon re-entering Ponyville, he saw a familiar pony in the distance. Gray pegasus mare, bubbles cutie mark, it could only be Derpy Hooves. _Aww hay, I'll accept even her help._ As he ran, a thought suddenly stuck her. _Oh no. All corrupted ponies are gray. How will I know if Discord hasn't gotten to her too?_

His fears were confirmed when she turned around, malice in her face. And as he got closer, he saw that her mane was completely gray and not chiffon yellow. _He's got her._ Also, she was headed straight for him, as if to pummel him for whatever reason. Having no time to deal with her, Chronicle primed his "magic horn blade", then executed his one-slash knockout maneuver. Unfortunately, he was able to sense that his attack was a miss and one second later he felt a drop kick from behind, which sent him tumbling forward.

He swiftly got up and faced Derpy, who was on twos and assuming a martial arts stance. "Just great," he groaned. "She knows martial arts too?" Chronicle began to form a barrier around her, but she swiftly swerved to the left, then closed in on him from the side. He flash-stepped out of the way, and turned to fire a magic shot only for her to be on him already. She tackled him and began to take him to the air. He immediately resolved that with a teleport to the ground, making sure not to 'get' her as well since she was too close.

_This'll be a bit harder than I thought. If Derpy's defining trait was (mild)incompetence, reversing her into someone efficient is scary._

[A/N: Unimportant, but my version of Doctor Whooves has three companions; Derpy Hooves, Roseluck, and Minuette.]

C—DH—C—DH—C—DH—C—DH—C—DH—C—DH

Meanwhile, inside Mystic Shield's place…

The self-defense teacher, still in the chocolate pool, finished explaining what had happened in Ponyville while Chronicle and his friends were in Canterlot.

Mystic was conducting a class when Discord popped in out of nowhere and—getting through the barriers instantly—struck Lemon hearts, Firecracker Burst, Comet Tail, Ponet, Written Script, and Holly Dash before they could react, turning them into a med-kit, an unlit torch, a hanging solar system model now in the ceiling, a sketchbook, an inkwell, and a giant strawberry respectively.

Bullseye, Greatstone, Chrono Cards, Tricky books, and Mystic Shield himself were quicker and managed to fire shots at him, but Discord proved impervious and instantly turned the First Four into a hay target, a boulder (though much smaller than the one Rarity thought was a diamond), a pack of playing cards, and a tome similar to Tricky's cutie mark respectively.

Having seen this, Mystic was left devastated that not only did he fail to protect his students, he failed them **bad**. This feeling has been mitigated a bit upon hearing just what Discord was capable of. He was also shocked at Chronicle's "plan" on seeking out "substitute Bearers".

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Mystic asked. "I mean, the Elements chose them. Even if we and your 'substitutes' can stand-in for honesty, kindness, laughter, generosity, and loyalty, will the resulting 'harmony blast' be strong enough to put a stop to him?"

Chronicle (the last magical clone, it turns out) remained where he was; at the end of the doors. He answered, "I admit that it's not exactly the best well-thought-out plan, but how else can you plan with six magical artifacts we still know so little about? My last-ditch plan is to fight Discord myself, and fight to kill."

"What?! Are you crazy?! Even after seeing what he can do, after trumping Princess Celestia herself, you think you have a chance?"

"No, but I have something nopony else has. For some reason, I have some sort of protective barrier around me that nullifies his magic, protecting my mind and body. Still, anything he conjures can hit me if he moves them to me."

"But if he can practically do **anything**, what's stopping him from killing with a thought, or crushing you with a mountain or something?"

"His behavior. From what I've seen and from what little I was able to deduce from him, he's extremely playful and does what he does for his own amusement. I'm guessing a swift kill is not amusing for him in the long term. Unless he's capable of bringing back the dead. In perfectly healthy condition unless he wants boring zombies."

"I'm not sure…I mean—" Before he could finish that sentence, Chronicle gasped as he saw something—Discord's lion paw—emerge from the floor behind Mystic.

"Look out!"

It was too late as the paw made contact with his head. (2) From there, the gray spread all over his head as his eyes went swirly as if mesmerized. It continued all the way down to his body and presumably ending at his submerged tail and hind legs. As the paw vanished, Mystic flared his horn, but nothing seemed to happen. Then, it turns out the barrier had been made _outside_ the dojo as it closed in fast from behind. The Chronicle clone was dissipated on impact.

C—MS—C—MS—C—MS—C—MS—C—MS—C—MS

Meanwhile…

The real Chronicle found himself pinned to the ground, Derpy constantly tapping his horn with her hoof to prevent him from casting spells. Despite her lacking hands to hold him down, he couldn't pull free even with one free leg, which he used to block her punches. Luckily, she didn't do any headbutts, which would risk her skull going through his horn if she wasn't careful.

He was distraught that his search was completely fruitless, which he head learned from his dissipated clones. There were barely any uncorrupted ponies left, and the few that weren't were such hopeless cases he can't get them to get a hold of themselves. And now, Discord decided to take a direct approach on his corruption of his closest male friend; Mystic Shield. _Is this what he did to my friends? Is this what he did if he didn't pay mind games?_

Just then, he sensed a surge of magic before seeing a familiar light shine in the distance. _The Elements!_ He didn't want to do this, but time was of the essence. Collecting up saliva, he spat at Derpy's face, hitting her in the eye. Her subsequent reeling back gave him enough time to teleport away. Once he was upright once again, he immediately ran for the source.

When the light fade after nine seconds however, he began to fear the worst. However, his pondering was interrupted when he felt a drop kick from behind, making him stumble.

"I am not done with you yet!" Derpy said as she landed behind him.

"**I am!**" he retorted as he cast a barrier around himself. As she charged right for him with full intent to smash through, he swiftly strengthened and expanded it, slamming it into her face and sending her flying. With no more time to waste, he continued heading for where the light was.

However, one more obstacle impeded his run. He tripped over "Screwball", who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Already losing time, he shouted a quick apology before moving on. Being so focused on making it to the light source, he didn't notice one pony who bypassed him, although he would've faltered in his step if he did see her.

He saw that it came from the library. Twilight was there, the Element of Magic atop her head, but the corruption was already beginning its work, starting from the tail/hind legs and working forward. "TWILIGHT!" he cried out as he instantly teleported to her face, then touched her horn with his and poured his magic in an attempt to fight off Discord's magic. He had no idea what it would do, but he was desperate to try anything.

His magic expanded from the horn and through her head, 'clashing' with the corruption at the neck. However, it was a losing battle, as Twilight's will has already been shattered. "Chronicle…"

"LOOK AT ME TWILIGHT! DON'T YOU GIVE UP ON ME!" She didn't so much as raise her head as the corruption started to win over Chronicle's magic.

"The Elements didn't work. Discord has won. It's over." Finally it covered her completely and repelled her last friend's magic. Only the jeweled tiara on her head retained its original hue. One tear fell from her closed eye, and it splashed on the ground to form a heart that split in two.

The (perhaps) last free pony in Ponyville raised his head, knowing he has failed to keep her from corruption, and gasped silently in despair as tears began to well up in his eyes.

C—TS—DH—C—TS—DH—C—TS—DH—C—TS—DH

Eyecatch (picture-type) - Image depicting three individuals. To the left is a defeated and corrupted Twilight Sparkle facing left. To the right is a torn up and angry Chronicle facing right. In the middle is Discord laughing maniacally. The background is the warped Ponyville. The show's logo is seen in the center between the two ponies.

C—TS—DH—C—TS—DH—C—TS—DH—C—TS—DH

Some time later…

While Twilight began to dejectedly walk around Ponyville, Chronicle was still a fair distance from the library, doing something he had promised never to do; cry. And he was sobbing a great deal. "Why?" he said to himself. "Why did things turn out so badly? Where did we go wrong?" After ten minutes of self-pity, he finally stopped crying and began to pull himself together.

"No, I can't be like this to myself. There's only one way left I can think of; I will have to fight Discord. But I need to know more." He took out Surveillance, and saw that Discord was not 'hacking' it anymore. "I need answers. I need to confirm my suspicions. See if my guesses behind his powers are well-founded." He Started with Applejack, 'rolling back' the recording to the point they entered the labyrinth.

C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C

_"When all the truth does…is make your heart ache…sometimes a lie is easier to take."_

Chronicle 'lowered' Surveillance, anger evident in his face. "Stupid, stupid, Applejack! I told her from the beginnning not to let **anything or anyone** make her stray from her path, and what did she do? She let some apples distract her!"

Pinkie Pie was next.

C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C

_"Oh, poor Pinkie Pie. And here I thought laughter made you happy."_

_"Happy? I don't think so."_

After watching this, Chronicle smacked himself in the head with the Surveillance "device" six times. "Figures. Can't really count on Pinkie to stick to the plan. While she **can** do so when serious, she certainly wasn't here. She sure is a wild card, and this time it went against our favor. With such a fragile mind…" he didn't finish the sentence as he proceeded to check out Rarity.

C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C

_"No! No! I shan't succumb to such fabulousness! …Must…get to the center…to meet…the others! …MINE!"_

Chronicle gave a sigh as he ended the "video". "So that explains the prolonged headache." He finally found the reason behind his migraines; Discord was influencing their minds but since he was immune to them, his "Harmony sense"—as he decided to call it—apparently decided to give him a headache.

His hoof hovered on Fluttershy's "icon", but stopped short on pressing it. For some reason, dread filled his mind as he suddenly lost the courage to check. So he decided to check Rainbow Dash instead.

C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C

_"A weighty choice is yours to make—_

_The right selection, or a big mistake._

_If the wrong choice you choose to pursue,_

_The foundations of home will crumble without you."_

_"Cloudsdale…crumble…without me…NOOOO!"_

_"That box contains your wings. You can take them and leave the game, or you can carry on aimlessly wandering this maze. Your choice."_

"I honestly can't tell what I would've chosen if I were her. While I am confident in Hadithi's residents, Cloudsdales's I'm not. But it's not fair that he corrupted her before she could decide." Chronicle lowered his head and grumbled to himself.

Giving a sigh, he took a look at Fluttershy's "icon". He was going to have to check and see what Discord did to her in the maze that made her such a "meanie-pants".

Already regretting his decision, but lacking the will to turn away, he tapped the icon and steeled himself for what he would see.

C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C—C

_Somewhere in the labyrinth, two very scared blue-green eyes peek out, then their owner leaped out into the path. Fluttershy's nerves have not calmed down one bit since this funhouse began._

_"Okay, I can do this." She began to move ahead. I can—"_

_The sudden appearance of three pink butterflies right in front of her spooked her into a scream and a full-speed retreat. Matching the ones in her cutie mark, they hovered around her rump as she tried to burrow back into the hedge. As soon as she got all the way in, they flitted away and she put her head back out with a smile._

_"Oh, wait a minute! Butterflies?" She began to gallop after them. "Wait! Don't leave me here!"_

"Dammit, don't follow them,"_ Chronicle futilely said as he watched her run. The insects continued their flight, but she spotted them from around a corner and hurried to catch up. In short order, she skid to a stop at a juncture of several passages, but no butterflies in sight. Just then, they emerged from one side, and one spoke in a high-pitched version of Discord's voice._

_"Fluttershy…" Upon closer investigation, they had his mismatched antlers, snaggle tooth, and bushy white eyebrows. "…looks like you've been left behind by your so-called friends, huh?"_

_Fluttershy just gave a smile. "Oh, no. I'm certain they're doing their best to find me." _

_The lepidoptera began to circle her head. "Well, it must be so upsetting to know how weak and helpless they think you are."_

_"Not at all. I am weak and helpless, and I appreciate their understanding."_

_The Butterfly Discord stammered in his normal voice. "Yes, well, surely it burns you up, I mean—" Then he resumed his high voice. "—that they're always pointing out your flaws, right?"_

_"Not really. In fact, I think I'm awfully lucky to have friends who want me to be the best I can be."_

_This seemed to be too much for the trickster, who resumed his normal form and voice, the butterflies disappearing. "Oh, for goodness' sake!" Instantly, he jabbed a taloned finger into her forehead, hypnotizing her and bleaching out her normal coloration._

F—D—F—D—F—D—F—D—F—D—F—D

Upon seeing this, Chronicle's eyes widened and his irises shrunk at this revelation, his arcanokinetic grip on his Surveillance "device" faltering as he let it drop to the ground. The scene of him corrupting her played itself over and over in his mind.

Time slowed as his mind registered Fluttershy's refusal to be swayed, her strong will…and the fact that Discord had to brute-force corrupt her, resulting in the strong mental attack he felt.

And who knows what she was feeling when this bad side now on the outside took over her?

_Why… that…_ Of all the atrocities Discord did, he felt this was the worst of them all. The most unforgivable. In an instant, all of his anger on the draconequus finally erupted out of him like a volcano. "That's… IT! NOW! IT'S! PERSONAL!" He continued to fume as he 'put away' Surveillance. _How dare he do that to her? I might've settled for letting the Elements of Harmony do its work on him, but no, he just __**had**__ to turn the most kindhearted pony into a heartless █████. No, he's gonna __**die**__, I don't care how, or even if I can! He won't get away with this alive if I can help it!_

It suddenly turned into nighttime and then a familiar voice came in a no-nonsense tone. "Pack your things, Chronicle. We're leaving." He looked up and saw that Twilight, still with her crown, was facing and soon about to walk past him. "And don't ask where we're going, 'cause…I don't know yet. Just not here."

Normally, he would've asked, or argued, but with his anger at its peak… "No."

Twilight stopped upon hearing that. "No?"

"No. I'm going to make Discord pay."

Keeping the same tone she argued, "There's no way you can win. Even if you're immune to his magic, there's still a myriad ways he can stop you, or even end you."

"I don't care. I'd rather go down fighting than admit defeat like this. Elements or no Elements, he's going down."

Twilight seemed to sense that he was dead serious, and that there was no stopping him. "I guess this is goodbye, then."

"If I don't make it back, that's probably the case."

"Goodbye, Chronicle."

"Goodbye, Twilight Sparkle."

And with that he ran off, ready to do what nopony else has ever done as far as he knew; fight Discord, and make him pay for his atrocities.

C—TS—C—TS—C—TS—C—TS—C—TS—C—TS

As he ran across Ponyville, he looked for a suitable place, stopped there, then called at the top of his lungs. "Discord! Show yourself!"

As if on command, the Spirit of Disharmony appeared…right behind him.

"Well, well, well. If it isn't the little immune pony Chronicle. What brings you to call me in exactly the same manner as Celes—"

The unicorn turned around and fired a 'shuriken', which the draconequus effortlessly dodged. "Cut the crap. I'm here to end this!"

"End what?"

"Don't you play dumb with me!" He started to flare his nostrils.

"Seriously, I have no clue as to what you're talking about." But his tone was that of a total liar. He then feigned suddenly getting it. "Oh. This is revenge for Twilight Sparkle, isn't it? Looks like I completely broke her. And I didn't need to do anything to ruin her friendship with you."

Chronicle refuted him. "You're wrong."

Discord seemed to not expect this answer as he showed confusion. "Excuse me?"

The stallion turned his head to glare at the draconequus. "Up to that point, Twilight is my friend. But even now, she is **still** my friend, as well as everyone else! I may not have shown it, but I still care for them as much as they all have for one another before you tore them apart. Maybe the Elements of Harmony are now unusable, but as long as there's somebody who still stands in your way, you have yet to achieve complete victory!"

Discord gave a mad laugh before saying, "Oh, you think you can defeat me?"

"Well, to be frank, by this point, I could care less if I even make it out of this alive!"

The draconequus seemed to be amused by this answer. "Oh, a death seeker, huh? Come on, you should chill out a bit. Besides, can't you see that this is all just a game?" He threw his arms out to the side grandiosely. "My own little game of chaos, no rules, no points. Just me and all of you and chaos!" He smirked evilly. "A game that only I can win!"

"We'll see about that!" A blue aura burst around his body and the force of it blew his mane and tail upwards. The unicorn retained his hateful glare at the draconequus. "In the name of whatever deity that has conceived Princesses Luna and Celestia, I shall bring you down! For Equestria! For the worlds beyond! And most importantly, for…my…friends!" Immediately, the aura that covered him completely burst further in an bright and intimidating manner, forcing Discord to avert his gaze for a few seconds.

When he looked back, he saw that Chronicle's mane somehow turned spiky and more yellow. The blue aura was flowing violently, as if it was meant to intimidate.

The stallion then opened his eyes and it turns out that the sclerae and pupils have exchanged their colors; the former was now brown and the latter was now white. (3) For some reason, this gave a chill up Discord's spine.

He fired up another spell and in a flash of light, he now possessed Glimmer Wings. Discord would've guffawed at their ridiculousness were he not fazed by the murderous intent he could see in Chronicle's eyes, not to mention the amount of power he was exuding.

The pony then folded his ears back, entered a charging position, then let out another huge snort. "My name is Chronicle! You brainwashed my friends! **Prepare to ****_die_****!**"

In an instant, he was onto him with a flash-step, delivering a magically-enhanced punch to the face. While the Glimmer Wings weren't streamlined like pegasus wings and catch a lot of wind, they still did their job well; keeping him in the air.

Needless to say, Discord was momentarily shocked when the hit connected, probably from the fact that he got hurt. Chronicle didn't give him a chance to recover as he followed up his punch with a couple more, adding kicks whenever he can, using his wings to keep himself aloft. He managed to land seventeen hits before Discord caught him in his claw and hurled him away, sending him spinning.

However, for all his rage, the unicorn was surprisingly focused as he teleported out of sight. He reemerged from behind the draconequus, and landed another punch, this time on the back, forcing him to bend forward. Chronicle followed up this attack by 'unsheathing' his "magic horn blade", and swinging it on him leftwards. However, as his "blade" wasn't set to "phase through", he ended up pushing himself past the spirit and he quickly balanced himself to land on the ground on all fours.

_Damn, looks like his skin is nigh-impenetrable. I put everything I had into that slash._ Despite looking like he's lost it, he could still think coherently enough to do things like change tactics.

Chronicle rectified this error and slashed through Discord before he could regain his bearings. The resulting phase-through attack seemed to deal intense pain, but he wasn't going to stop with just that. He was going to inflict as much pain as possible. He only managed two more before Discord decided to teleport away.

His instincts, which turn out to be heightened by his current "form", told him that he was right behind him.

'Sheathing' his "horn blade", Chronicle let forth a giant shuriken of magic from his horn, which Discord playfully avoided by somersaulting to the side — quickly getting over his earlier shock and fear.

"Whoo," he whistled at the leaving shot, "That might've hurt… if it, y'know, hit." He was answered by another three shurikens, which he answered to by coiling his body into a circle, head to tail, imitating a target. "Oh, good shot! Five, ten, twenty points!" He announced as they passed harmlessly through the loop. They were quickly followed by another, which met an equally pointless fate. "Yeah, you own that nothing in particular." And another… "Me. Hit me, not the tree." With a healthy dose of childlike laughter, he proceeded to weave through the onslaught with grace - dancing, spinning, rolling, and teleporting back and forth. And that was why he somehow failed to notice the unicorn 'hurl' an entire **_wall_** of shurikens until it slammed right into him, knocking him off his feet but not piercing through.

Chronicle followed this through by 'picking up' some random heavy boulders that "just happened" to be in the area. Normally, he'd experience difficulty 'carrying' them, but with his powers magnified he can 'lift' plenty with ease. Also, he wouldn't normally wreck the environment while fighting, but he didn't care anymore. Nothing but Discord's demise mattered to him now, and by every good deity he could think of apart from Celestia and Luna, he will carry out his promise.

He hurled them right at Discord, who recovered enough to turn them into random stuff before they could reach him. One became a giant gumball, another a fluffy pink cloud. One burst into flames, and another sprouted a top hat and began a song and dance number. One was even turned into a flock of "Angry" birds.

Chronicle changed tactics right that as he charged once again; if Discord's **that** evasive with shots, then coming up close and personal is the only way. 'Drawing' his "horn blade" he charged at Discord once again, only for him to bring up his tacky umbrella, fold it up, and use it to parry the attack. The draconequus spun and opened it to shield himself from a subsequent shuriken attack, and then turned it inside out, sending a deluge of chocolate milk rushing towards the unicorn, who brought up a barrier in time. Once the barrier faded, Chronicle's "horn blade" began to glow brighter and he rushed once more.

Discord folded up his umbrella, ready to "clash blades" again, but upon swinging it to parry the unicorn's attack, the "horn blade" sliced through it like it was nothing more than paper. Chronicle then diced it into smaller pieces before landing an attack on the spirit and knocking him back.

Discord, wincing a bit, asked, "Fun as this is, don't you think it's my turn?" he settled down on the grass and plucked a massive strand of…pink bubblegum from the air, as thick as a hoof. He twirled it like a lasso, twisting it into various shapes. He hurled it at the pony, who deftly cut it to pieces.

"You got the nerve to call this **fun**?! Once I'm through with you, you'll be nothing but a memory!" Chronicle flash-stepped close to Discord, then began to create five copies of himself, all "charged up" like he was and with the "magic horn blade" 'unsheathed'. Before the spirit could react, Chronicle and his copies began their assault in earnest. "I am going to kill you, and kill you, and kill you!"

Amidst the agonizing storm of blades, Discord managed to get away yet again, then create a contingent of distorted clones of Chronicle—which instantly dispatched the magical ones—to deal with him. But they were no match for the furious stallion.

"Eat this!" White sparks appeared around Chronicle's body before he released powerful bolts of magical energy all around himself, diverging in all directions, destroying all his distortions and striking Discord once more. The resulting attack seemed to mimic electrocution, if how the draconequus was reacting to it any indication…unless he meant to spasm around like that.

Chronicle decided to take this chance to deal a long "slash combo", which Discord responded to by resummoning his umbrella, good as new, to deflect the attacks. He seems to have reinforced it further so that it wouldn't break again. Discord then teleported right behind the unicorn and was about to spray him with bubblegum when his target teleported as well. But instead of behind, Chronicle emerged from the side opposite the umbrella and launched a ████load of "shurikens" at it and its holder, mercilessly tearing apart the entire area (a couple of empty market stalls) as well as the umbrella.

Immediately after that, he charged and followed up with a sequence of upward slashes, making nine before proceeding with another attack. Not missing a beat or letting Discord recover enough to counterattack, he shortened and lengthened his "magic horn blade" in rapid succession, doing a flurry of skewer attacks on the spirit. He managed to reach forty-two stabs before the last one ended up pushing Discord a fair distance.

He rushed in to close the distance, but Discord was very quick to recover this time and already had his counter-attack set. He managed to grab him and sweep him onto a wild dance. Chronicle brought his head down to slice the draconequus's smug mug, but he teleported away in the last second and a square in the checkerboard ground thrust itself upward, sending the unicorn high like a pinball and through two cotton candy clouds.

It was the draconequus turn to charge, closing in on the unicorn for a sucker punch to the gut, but on impact it dissipated, having turned out to be a clone. The real Chronicle teleported in from behind, his Glimmer Wings dirty with cotton candy, but still workable thanks to him magically reinforcing them.

Before he could attack, a storm of pies assaulted him from the right, hitting his wings enough to render them unusable for flight. Losing the only thing keeping him in the air, he started to fall, only to teleport away. Discord expected him to reemerged from above and summoned a cotton candy cloud to catch and ensnare him. Instead, the unicorn emerged at another nearby cloud at 5 o' clock, his feet not sticking thanks to his water-walking spell, which actually worked on any substance he would normally fall through.

"PERISH!" he cried out as he 'elongated' his "magic horn blade", which was already aimed at Discord's gut. The spirit swimmingly evaded the blow, then gripped it with his talon.

"You have been quite entertaining but it can only last so long," Discord teased, reinforcing his talon with his own magic. Despite Chronicle himself being immune to his spells, his magic was fairer game once it was out of whatever 'shield' he had. Using his paw, the spirit created and hurled a ball of tree sap at the unicorn, which was easily repelled by a barrier.

Chronicle 'shortened' his "blade" to his usual length, and replied "I agree." before flash-stepping out of the cloud and into Discord's face. The spirit prepared to weave out of whatever attack the pony was going to deal, but he didn't count on him teleporting **again** so quickly, this time from above and behind. He landed on Discord's neck, wrapped himself around it, then 'shocked' him with magical energy, exuding lots of pain.

"For, Luna, Celestia…" He named each pony he was sure Discord had affected while he was free. While he wasn't sure on Luna, the fact that the moon was wrested from her control made it all the more likely. "…the Crusaders, Dinky, Skyla, and Mystic Shield!"

The two slammed through a fountain, which was spouting out chocolate milk and the statue there in Discord's likeness. (4) Amidst the rubble, Chronicle was blasted away by a beam of concentrated magic and slammed down a fair distance away. Discord emerged from the ruins of the fountain, irritated by the unicorn's persistence and perhaps the fact that he had to resort to something simple and boring.

Chronicle quickly got back up and his horn glowed a brilliant blue as he prepared to cast a spell. "I'm ending this! **Now!**" All of a sudden, a "magic circle" appeared underneath Discord. Unlike the one he used to pin down Nightmare Moon, this was much stronger thanks to his current state. And surprisingly to both of them, the spirit found himself stuck as he attempted to move his legs and tail out to no avail, then saw also that he couldn't teleport out. Next, the "magic circle" acquired a clock pattern, complete with numbers from "1" to "12".

It's not known if this was a coincidence or not, but Chronicle was in line with the "7" and "1" in the circle. He then primed his "magic horn blade", then charged with all his might. As he did, his body became surrounded by a brighter version of his aura and now appeared white and black from an outsider's point of view. (5)

As he began to see Chronicle make his way towards him, Discord realized that while he somehow can't free himself, he could still use his magic outside the circle. Snapping his talon, he created an upwards slope in front of him so that Chronicle will end up running up it and miss him entirely. However, what happened next caught him off guard completely; Chronicle somehow smashed through the slope and created a hole in it, still charging straight for him.

"This is for Applejack!" Chronicle cried out.

He slashed through him, then teleported so that he was a distance away once more and now in line with the "11" and "5" in the circle . Also, the "7" and "1" there now shone.

Discord snapped his talon again and a series of fire walls appeared in between the two, forming a labyrinth. Instead of slowing down and/or navigating around the walls, the unicorn just plowed straight through them. It didn't matter if the fires were real or not; he just conjured a barrier to ward them off.

"This is for Rarity!"

He slashed through him again and he teleported so that he was now in line with the "4" and "10", the "11" and "5" now shining.

Discord's counter this time was a ginormous tsunami of chocolate milk. Milk or not, there's no way a unicorn could breach that wave with a barrier without losing speed or getting pushed back. No ordinary one, anyway; Chronicle once again defied the spirit expectations by plowing through the wave, not losing any momentum as his barrier diverted the liquid with ease.

"This is for **Pinkie Pie!**"

He repeated the process as he now lined himself with the "9" and "3", the "4" and "10" now shining.

With another snap of his talon, the cotton candy clouds in the sky unleashed green lightning bolts, which sprouted random obstacles—ranging from things like dancing boulders and balloons with dragon scale under them to bubblegum walls and 'mines'—from where they struck, and were effortlessly shrugged off by Chronicle's aura when they hit there. The obstacles were blown out of his path as well like they were nothing.

"This is for **Rainbow Dash**!"

Again he struck and again he teleported so that he was now in line with the "2" and "8", the "9" and "3" now shining.

Discord's next move was to create a trio of giant tornadoes filled with sugar. Even without the sweetener, this should surely veer him off course. However…

"This is for **my dear Fluttershy**!" Tears fell from his eyes like a sparkling stream as he said this, jumped, and magically spun like a drill, just to enhance the force of his blow.

As he spun, he plowed through the tornadoes, immediately dissipating them on contact, building up his speed in the process. Taking these to his advantage, by the time he was through the third tornado, he reached Discord and struck him hard. And maintained his position instead of passing through. As a result, his attack continued for longer than usual before he teleported himself farther, now in line with the "6" and "12" (the "2" and "8" now shining), and no longer spinning.

In spite of his tunnel vision induced from this attack, he could see that Discord looked desperate. As if he was unable to think of some creative way to stop the rebellious unicorn, he charged up a beam of chaos energy from his hands, then fired it. Unlike last time, it didn't go straight but went in all different angles before hitting him. Unfortunately, he seemed to forget that Chronicle had some kind of barrier that nullified his magic and seemed to realize it as his beam just dispersed around the invisible barrier.

"**And this is for Twilight Sparkle!**"

His horn glowed brighter as he picked up speed. Just as he reached the draconequus, he jumped so that his 'magic horn blade' was now aimed at his head. He slashed right through and then landed on the ground behind Discord, his back turned to him.

Now that all 12 numbers shone, the seal began to shine brightly and create a magical dome around the draconequus. Behind him, he could hear the magic power do its explosive work, although he thought he heard Discord snap his fingers as well. A brilliant pillar of light emerged from the circle, completely engulfing Discord and sending a beacon into the sky.

Chronicle maintained his position to give himself a moment's rest as his mane, tail, and eyes finally reverted to normal. As his mind also cleared from all his anger and desire to end Discord's life, he practically felt the resulting light shine as it hopefully decimated the spirit. (6)

_The "Time Seal Revenge",_ he recalled reading it from a book. _It allows a unicorn to deal a massive amount of pain to one target. It needed a couple of specific conditions that happened to be met though. One, he needed to have at least three special somethings or someones to dedicate this attack to. (He had six special someones for this.) Two, these have to have been wronged somehow by the intended target. (Discord wronged them, all right, without a doubt.) Three, it had to be activated in a state of sheer rage. (Chronicle couldn't be any angrier than he was when he pummeled the draconequus.)_

_The rushing part was optional; any attack will do. It's a very complicated spell and with its conditions, it was highly impractical for battle and more suited for vengeance and finishing blows. Never thought I'd end up using it. Or did Moonbow's fortune influence my decision?_

As Chronicle calmed down some more, the recent memories of the beatdown he delivered on Discord began to dawn on him. _Wow._ He was amazed with himself as he recalled just how much pain he inflicted. _How was I able to release that much power? And utilize it in battle? I bet I might've gone hoof-to-hoof with Celestia like that. I'm surprised I was still focused enough not to pummel head-on over and over again._ He also began to shudder in fear. _Hold on. This kind of power… I've seen it before. My father has similar powers, even when not in alicorn form. If I remember correctly, his father hailed from V—_

His thoughts were interrupted by a raucous laugh from behind and a slight chill went up Chronicle's spine; in spite of everything he did, Discord had survived the attack!

"O-ho-ho-ho-ho, that was hilarious!" he said. Chronicle didn't turn around. "You…yelling the names of each of your friends as you delivered what you thought would be your finishing blow on me. Oh, it drives me to tears!" After laughing for a while longer, his tone then turned serious. "I'm not about to go down from your kind of brute force, no matter how epic-looking it might be. And while you did say Twilight's name in your final blow, she isn't the most important reason you're attacking me, isn't she?"

Chronicle refused to answer.

Discord then began to talk teasingly, "Oh, I know. It's that bearer of the Element of Kindness. Fluttershy, was it?"

_Ignore him. Ignore him. Give yourself time to recover._

"You know, I don't understand why you hate me so much for what I did to her. I mean, compared to what I did to the rest, what I did to her was pretty tame."

"Actually…" Chronicle did his best to keep himself composed, in spite of wanting to lash out on him again. "Of all the things you've did, that was the **most atrocious** of them all. To turn the sweetest pony I've ever known in my entire life into a cruel and unsympathetic █████ who does bad things just for the ████ of it…" He finally snapped as he turned around to face Discord, once again bursting in an aura of magic, but without the spiky mane or color-reversed eyes. "**I'll never ████████████' forgive you for that!**"

"Ooh, language," teased the draconequus. "Because of your colorful mouth, I'm gonna have to step up my game." Discord then 'conjured' a sizable boulder for him to toss at the one immune rebellious pony.

Chronicle widened his eyes in shock from Discord essentially stating that he didn't fight him at one-hundred of his potential.

"Oh, come now. Did you really think **that** was my best? That you really had a chance of beating me? Then again, you said you didn't care. And that you would take me down, 'even at the cost of your life'? Well, I don't plan on letting it come to that, so I think I'm gonna settle with making you suffer." Discord made an evil smile as he hurled the boulder at Chronicle, who sliced it in half with his "magic horn blade" before charging at Discord again.

[A/N: Sorry, but I intend to do all the episodes on Season 3 as well, so in spite of all my hate for Discord, which was soon calmed down after one certain episode, Chronicle is not going to win. That would be a touch more unrealistic than it already is.]

C—D—C—D—C—D—C—D—C—D

Eyecatch (picture-type) - Discord is having the time of his life as he hovers behind Chronicle is utterly determined to defeat the spirit as he turns his head to face him. The show's logo is seen on the upper left.

C—D—C—D—C—D—C—D—C—D

Ten seconds later…

Chronicle continued to fight, even without whatever form he had assumed at the start of the battle. He has no idea how he entered that state, but it certainly required lots of rage. Unfortunately for him, not only has that rage been long since subsided, Discord's strategy has changed as well.

Right now, he was assaulted with a constant wave of an unknown substance. It stung something fierce, and he instantly cast a barrier around himself. For the second time since befriending the Bearers of Harmony, he found himself dangerously low on magic, the first time being when he transferred magic to Twilight during the Ursa Minor incident. As it was, when he reverted to normal, while he retained the magic he had during his "rage state", it was not much since he used plenty of it upon executing the "Time Seal Revenge".

And he only realized this just as he shielded against the stinging substance. He was running on empty, and he no longer had enough magic to teleport away to safety. In four seconds, he was finally depleted and as his barrier faltered, the liquid struck his body and inflicted serious pain and he fell over as Discord dismissed it.

"Do you feel the Schadenfreude?" Discord asked as he hovered over the unicorn.

"Why don't you just get it over with?" Chronicle spat. "Because if you don't, I will never stop trying to kill you."

"Like you ever had a chance? I'm the spirit of chaos and disharmony. It required both Princesses using the Elements to defeat me. What can one mortal pony do? Ta!" Discord then disappeared, probably to cause more chaos.

Chronicle struggled to get up, but found himself too fatigued. _Dammit. Completely empty. I can't even access "hammerspace" to get the ether._ Just then, his horn began to spark with magic. _Oh no. What's happening to Twilight now…_ All of a sudden, he felt himself enveloped in a magical aura. From what he could see, it wasn't his own as it was in a magenta hue. And then, the most miraculous thing happened; he felt himself being filled to the brim with magic. Once the aura was gone, he wondered something, 'took out' Surveillance, checked on Twilight, and saw—

He couldn't believe his eyes; her's colors have been restored! But was this because of her? Or did his bond with the Elements of Harmony have something to do with it?

_"It's all so clear!"_ she was saying as she levitated Spike (who didn't look so good) up for a hug. Can't you see?" She began to jump, floating him in a circle. _"Discord's trying to distract us from what's important! He knows how powerful our friendships are and he's trying to keep us from seeing it! Do you remember what I said the first day we arrived in Ponyville? I told you that the future of Equestria didn't rest on me making friends. But the opposite is true! The friendships I've made since I've been here are what saved Equestria from Nightmare Moon."_ She levitated Spike into his basket. _"And now they need to save it from Discord!"_

His only response was a barely audible moan.

_"You're right, Spike. I've got to fight for my friendships. For them! For me! For Equestria!"_

Chronicle decided that now was the time to speak up. _"Glad to…see you're…finally back, …Twilight Sparkle."_

She started up in surprise, then remembered Surveillance. _"Chronicle? Where are you?"_ It then dawned on her. _"…Oh no, don't tell me—"_

"Yes. I am."

_"Let me—"_

"Help me by getting the rest of our friends back. We need the Elements of Harmony. They may not be our only hope, but it's the best one we got. Go. Now."

Before she could reply, he put it away and marched forward. If Discord were to find this out, he would be able to stop them, and possibly for good, so Chronicle decided to fight the spirit again. This time, he knew he wouldn't be able to kill Discord, but he could probably stall for time.

Deciding to catch his attention a different way, he launched a "giant shuriken" skywards. It did its job, and Discord returned. "Oh, Chronicle. Ready for round two so soon?"

"You bet," the unicorn replied with a severe expression.

"Before we begin, I'd like to tell you something."

Normally, Chronicle would not stand for small talk with the enemy, but given his new task, he decided to humor him. "Go ahead."

"I have to admit, you're the second mortal pony who's managed to hurt me, and you beat **her** by a landslide in terms of damage."

The unicorn couldn't help but be impressed. "Oh."

"See this tooth? The other mortal pony who hurt me knocked off the other one by bucking at supersonic speeds."

_Okay. Not as cool. Then again, she was a native, and I'm not._

"I did not like the pain and ended her. I guess you can say this is why I'm still cool with you even if you did deal a lot more. But if you insist on going on with this…oh well."

Before Chronicle knew it, his legs were bound by bubblegum. (7) Then they started to pull in four different directions, but not on the verge of tearing him apart. Before the unicorn could cast a spell, Discord lashed out another bubblegum whip and wrapped it around his horn.

"Maybe I can't affect you directly, but there is always another way." The bubblegum that bound the unicorn's legs surfaced like underground ropes being pulled upward, nothing on the other end. "Let's see how much you can take." He snapped his talon and Chronicle was assaulted by what seems to be an invisible boxer hitting him from all directions and at all parts of his body. The legs, the gut, the posterior, the neck, and it only stopped when the unicorn was sure he could feel a bone break.

"Is… this kind of… brutality… your style?" Chronicle asked, still hanging on the bubblegum ropes.

"Not really. But like I said, I can't affect you directly." Discord snapped his talon and the ropes disappeared, letting the unicorn drop to the ground. "Ciao." With that, he vanished once again.

_Dammit. I forgot I'm still tired._ Chronicle could feel fatigue kicking in, as well as the pain Discord just doled out on him. Even with his magic restored, his stamina was dismally low thanks to his earlier… roaring rampage of revenge, and now his physical condition wasn't good either.

Just then, he felt his legs wobble for a few seconds. _Applejack._ Then, an orange aura enveloped his entire body. This time, he felt not his stamina being restored, but his physical injuries completely wash away. Once the aura was gone, he checked his 'screen' and saw that Twilight had, to his slight disdain, restored Applejack.

_"Wh…what happened?"_ he heard the farmpony say as she got up, presumably after Twilight knocked her down for some reason. _"Twilight! Oh, I saw a vision of us feudin' and fightin'."_ The purple unicorn seemed to smile in understanding. _"I couldn't face the truth, so I started tellin' lies."_ She removed her hat. _"Can you ever forgive me?"_

_"I already have."_ Twilight galloped off. _"Come on!"_

The restored blond pony allowed herself a fierce smile and followed, donning her hat. "That's great, Twilight," Chronicle called through Surveillance. "One down, four to go. And Applejack, either you forgot or ignored my instructions back in the maze, or Discord messed with them and/or your head. Either way, I'm gonna have a **very** stern talk with you after this."

The farmpony just lowered her head, thoroughly ashamed. _"Yer right. I don't know what got into me when I saw those apples."_

"Later. I'm about to get my flank kicked by Discord. I'll buy as much time as I can."

Before he could hear her reply, he 'stowed' away Surveillance, and took off once more, feeling almost like new. With that, he launched another "giant shuriken" skywards.

It did its job, and Discord returned, and he was quite surprised to see the unicorn ready to fight again. Chronicle didn't give him enough time to utter a word as he drew his "horn blade" and lunged at Discord again.

Instead of following through, he flash-stepped right behind the draconequus and **then** followed through. But Discord seemed to be ready and teleported right behind **him**. He swung his talon, but the unicorn flash-stepped behind the draconequus and swung again, only for him to mimic his actions. This went on for a good while, and not always from behind. Sometimes it came from above, and when it did, it sometimes also came from below.

One of them slipped up, and unfortunately, it was Chronicle. He thought Discord was right behind him and teleported accordingly, but the spirit turned out to be at the side, and instead of another talon slash, Discord brought down a green lightning bolt from a cotton candy cloud above, electrocuting the pony continuously.

"How's this for a taste of your own medicine?" Discord taunted. "Did you know that because of their horns and magic, unicorns are more vulnerable to lightning than other ponies?" He then stopped the lightning, turned away, and pointed at something as the unicorn fell to the ground. "Oh, look. Is that a still-normal pony I see? Let me just twist her mind a bit, and I'll get back to you, okay?" He then teleported away.

_I hope that's not Twilight…_ Chronicle hoped as he felt his heart beating fast. In spite of being effectively as good as new after that orange aura, he felt he was about to have a heart attack any second now thanks to that electrocution. Just as he thought it was coming, he felt his heart beat more rapidly.

_This is it. I can't take another step._

Following that however was a pink aura enveloping his entire body. He then felt his heart slow its beating and he felt himself calm down. Once the aura was gone, he checked Surveillance and saw, to his relief, that Fluttershy was restored. She seemed to have been hogtied, probably to restrain her meanie-pants self.

"Thank you, Twilight," he sighed. "Thank you."

_"Oh, no! Twilight! Applejack! I just had the worst dream!"_ the pegasus said.

"I wish it were, Fluttershy. I wish it were. Unfortunately, whatever you thought was a dream was all too real. And I'm gonna make him pay for making you like that!" Before he could hear her reply, he put it away and readied himself.

Discord appeared just a few seconds later. "I'm ba—" He was cut off by a back attack from the unicorn, who impaled him with his "horn blade". 'Turning off' the "phase through" setting, he then 'carried' the spirit and slammed him through a cardboard cutout of a house (which he began to regret), then to the ground on the side.

Since neither of them were standing, the draconequus slammed his lion paw on the ground and some of the checkerboard squares below them launched the unicorn into the air—turning him around as Chronicle crashed into the ground on the other side. He then teleported himself out of the "blade"'s grasp, and then—as he reemerged—summoned distorted versions of the unicorn.

These distortions summoned "magic horn blades" of their own, then charged straight for their lying-down original. Chronicle was quick to get up, flare his own "blade", and charged at his distortions as well. Before they could reach him, he teleported away, emerged behind them, then shot a flurry of "shurikens", destroying them all.

He proceeded to slash at the draconequus again, who brought up his umbrella to parry it. "You haven't learned, huh?" the unicorn taunted. "I can cut through that if I want to!" He increased his power and struck again…only for the umbrella to remain intact. "What?!"

"Oh, I've learned," the draconequus taunted. "I learned that your previous state increased your 'power level'. And that I can use my own magic to modify the properties of anything I make." He summoned two cotton candy clouds above and below the unicorn, then the bottom one began to deluge him with chocolate milk, raining it upwards. The torrent slammed him into the upper cloud, which started to 'fight back' with its own torrent.

Due to the quickness and the strength of the torrent, Chronicle couldn't focus enough to focus the rain-drinking spell at a point away from him to save himself. Before he could drown, the storm stopped and he was then sandwiched in between the clouds. To add insult to injury, Discord hovered over him and summoned a living gummy worm to wrap itself around the unicorn's horn, disabling his magic.

The draconequus began to laugh at the result. "A-ha-ha-ha-ha, looks like I outdid myself this time. I think I'll leave you for later. I got more chaos to spread!" With that, he disappeared and the 'cloud sandwich' fell to the ground, in the midst of a large puddle of chocolate rain.

Chronicle could feel completely constricted and bogged down by the chocolate that has dried up on his coat. Even though it was giving him a little extra energy, which he seriously needed, the combination of dried chocolate and cotton candy was considerably impeding his movements. Just then, he felt his eyes ache for a second. He felt something pull all the food off of his body, and then the cotton candy was violently blown away. The worm was gone too.

When the unicorn landed on the chocolate milk puddle, he saw that not only was a violet aura enveloping his body, he was completely squeaky-clean. Once the aura vanished, he checked Surveillance and saw that Rarity was restored. There came a scream, then he saw the boulder (which he had named Tom, turns out) being shoved out of the boutique.

_"Let us never speak of this again,"_ she said.

"You got it, Rarity," he spoke up. "Two more to go, Twilight."

He then terminated the communication, used the rain-drinking spell to suck up all the chocolate milk, not minding that he stepped on it and it was on the ground, and launched another "giant shuriken" skywards. When it didn't "summon" the spirit, he used his pinpointing spell on the area, hoping that Discord's signature was on them. After getting a reading, he cast an enhancing spell on his legs, and proceeded to jump across the rooftops of Ponyville.

C—TS—A—R—F—D—C—TS—A—R—F—D

Ten seconds of searching later, Chronicle located Discord, who was sitting on a throne atop a hill. He could see long-legged rabbits stampede past a house built of giant playing cards, a house he was hiding in. With a devious grin, in one swift move, he teleported behind the throne and shoved his "magic horn blade" through the backrest and Discord's unsuspecting back.

"Guess who?" he couldn't help taunting. He then sensed the draconequus teleport out of his 'hold' and re-emerged right behind him.

"I know who." He delivered a sweep kick with his right dragon claw, but the unicorn flash-stepped behind him. "And I'll have to say I'm beginning to lose my patience with you."

"What can I say? If you don't put an end to me, I will never stop trying to do the same to you."

"And when will you accept the fact that you **can't**? The Princesses had a **very** hard time sealing me. A mere mortal like you can't hope to exceed them."

"Hey. **Mere mortals** defeated an immortal. I believe you know who." _And my father's dealt with any of your ilk that invade our home base and home world._

"Oh, please. Nightmare Moon can't hold a candle to my power. You're barely even a flicker." He lashed out his tail at the unicorn…and realized it was a magical clone.

"Power isn't everything." A lance of energy pierced through Discord's throne and into his…gut. The instant it entered there however, the draconequus teleported right behind him and picked him up.

"And my throne is for me **ONLY**!" He then drop-kicked the unicorn into the sky with his left hoof. He then 'ordered' some of his clouds to go after him and bog him down again.

Chronicle quickly saw them coming and teleported…once Discord was out of his sights, so as to make him think they got him. Using the momentum from his being thrown, he re-emerged and bucked the draconequus in the chin, then flipped and rolled down the hill it was atop of. He then teleported again and reemerged at the rooftop of the card house, which did not topple from his weight.

Discord appeared in front of him a second later, and 'drew' his umbrella as the unicorn 'drew' his "magic horn blade" in response. "Admit it. Even if we didn't head for the maze, you still would've made one anyway if we actually headed to Ponyville like I intended."

"You intended?"

_I sometimes go off on my own, but I do what I do for my friends._ He didn't say this out loud as he swung his blade again, which was deftly deflected by the umbrella. He twirled his blade around, shortly disarmed the draconequus, then blasted him with "shurikens".

Discord countered this by seamlessly weaving around the attacks, had the roof of the card house open up, throwing off Chronicle's balance as he ended up doing a split, and then had it closed up again before he delivered a side kick with his right dragon claw, sending him flying through some cotton candy clouds before crashing into a random chocolate milk lake.

The unicorn surfaced, feeling a bit discouraged that he has to fight this long. With his "rage state" gone, and with no immediate way to re-entering it, he was beginning to have doubts. Even though defeating Discord was no longer the point now, he could feel himself losing the will to continue.

_I can't go on like this. Why am I even still fighting? Shouldn't I just call for Story Crew help right about now?_ Suddenly, he felt his tail twitch, and then a cyan aura enveloped his body. He just knew that Pinkie Pie was restored, and—somehow—any uncertainty that began to fester was instantly dispelled. _No. I can't give up! My friends are counting on me! And I'm not about to let them down!The only time I call on the Story Crew for help is during the __**bleakest**__ of times, and this is certainly not bleak._

Once the aura disappeared, he checked Surveillance and saw Pinkie Pie, back to normal as he suspected, giggling while on a wheelbarrow pulled by Applejack.

_"Oh, and I…I turned gray! Can you believe it?"_ she was saying.

"All right, Twilight," he called. "All that's left is Rainbow Dash. Please hurry. I don't know how much longer I can last. Make every second I buy you count."

Without waiting for a reply, he put it away again, used his rain-drinking spell to consume some of the lake. Then he took out the ether bottle he got from Zecora's hut and took a swig, feeling his magic return. Before he could take off however, he got a tingling feeling that came with drinking too many fluids.

He had to go relieve himself.

_Dammit. Why now of all times?_

C—TS—PP—D—C—TS—PP—D—C—TS—PP—D

A quick break later…

Chronicle gave a sigh of relief as he exited from a candy cane bush. "To think I had to resort to this. I'm adding another reason to deck Discord; the chocolate milk is too delicious." Taking a look around, he found that he wasn't that far off from Discord's throne. And the draconequus was busy eating a cotton candy cloud.

_This will be my last,_ he thought. _If I know her, Rainbow will be notoriously difficult to catch. And she'll be in the air. I hope Twilight knows a slow spell, or Fluttershy gets the necessary adrenaline rush._

Flaring his horn, he attempted to pull off a spell he saw on a book that he had been about to practice before the chaos began; to render invisible his magic, or at least when it leaves him in the form of a projectile. Concentrating on what little he has memorized of it, he formed the "shuriken" in front of his face. He then concentrated on making it disappear. Slowly, it faded until he couldn't see it save for a faint outline, which the book said was what he should see. Focusing some more, he finally launched the "shuriken" at Discord.

His invisible attack hit the glass of chocolate milk he was drinking…and it went kaboom in his face. Disoriented for a bit, he glared in the presumed direction of the attack…and saw Chronicle giving a smirk as the unicorn readied himself to fight once more. The draconequus swiftly arose from his seat, his expression severe. "You sure are a glutton for punishment, are you, Chronicle?" he said, feeling furious for the second time since his freedom.

"You better believe it!" he retorted as he charged, "magic horn blade" on the ready. Ten seconds however, what seemed to be a "sugar"-storm buffeted him from behind, blowing him forward in a tumble. Discord was already at the bottom of the hill and he had a golf club on the ready.

The unicorn immediately formed a barrier around himself, inadvertently conjuring an orb around himself, which he now began to roll in. The draconequus swung and hit him like one would a golf ball. It smashed through the barrier, but the blow was softened enough so that it wasn't a disorienting one. As Discord followed through, he saw Chronicle fly a good mile before teleporting back to the ground, where he dug his feet into the ground to slow himself down.

Before he could regain his bearings completely, Discord made the ground below him thrust itself up, sending him sailing into the air once more. As he did, he figured that getting a 'status report' was now imperative as he 'took out' Surveillance just enough to get into audio contact.

C—D—C—D—C—D—C—D—C—D—C—D

Meanwhile, Twilight and company finally tracked down Rainbow Dash, who was resting on a cloud, uncaring for the world and thinking the cloud was Cloudsdale. Since it was impossible to get her down as she was too high, they decided to head **up** to her level, "borrowing" one of the Twinkling Balloon Services hot-air balloons. Miraculously, one has been spared from Discord's magic and was quickly set to work.

On the balloon, they ascended right behind the indolent pegasus, who they saw was asleep on her cloud and snoring mightily. Applejack was riding on top of the balloon, Twilight, Pinkie, and Rarity in the basket, and Fluttershy flying separately and checking to make sure Rainbow was not faking. Seeing she wasn't she then flew up to the balloon, which has stopped a short distance above.

"Okay, Fluttershy," Twilight whispered. "You grab Rainbow Dash and hold her down." A rope end tied in a loop was lowered to her. "Applejack will lower me down from this rope so I can cast the memory spell on her." Above, Applejack waved vigorously while holding the other end of the rope. "Chronicle's buying us time. We better not waste it."

Fluttershy gave a salute— "Got it!" —then dropped into a fast dive and braked to a stop alongside the cloud, her whole body tensed for a pounce onto the sleeper. Just as quickly, she relaxed and prodded Rainbow gently. "Um, I'm just wondering if it's okay if I hold you down against your will for a little bit?"

Realizing that her friend's timid nature had come back at the worst possible moment, Twilight groaned and clapped a hoof to her forehead while Rarity rolled her eyes.

The query did, however, bring Rainbow out of her nap in a hurry. She lets off a disdainful little snort. "Nice try! Ponyville's your problem, not mine." She then, dropped back onto her cloud, wrapping all four legs around it, and zoomed away in a gray/white blur.

Fluttershy was left perplexed as a doubled-up rope was dropped to her. "Come on, Fluttershy!" Twilight called one end tied to each hoof. "We gotta catch her! We can't let Chronicle's efforts be in vain!"

The yellow flyer clamped her teeth around the rope and got her wings going, but it soon became clear that she was trying to fly above her weight class.

"Oh, I wish Chronicle had at least sent a clone or something. He'd be a great help right now," the purple unicorn groaned to herself.

"But he's currently fighting Discord," Rarity pointed out. "And it's because of what happened to us he's doing it in the first place. I don't think he can spare a moment to be distracted."

"Rarity's right," Pinkie said. "He's counting on us to do this."

_"Hey, girls."_ Chronicle's voice came from somewhere, getting looks of confusion from all the mares in the area, including the corrupted pegasus, and then all but Rainbow remembered that he can communicate with them via Surveillance. _"How's the search?"_

"We found her," Twilight answered. "It's just a matter of catching her."

"What do you mean catching her? She's on the move?" Suddenly, a lightning strike could be heard from his location and a cry of pain followed. A thump followed.

"Chronicle! Are you okay?"

_"I've had worse scrapes,"_ he grunted. _"Don't lose her!"_

"All right." She then snapped the rope reins on Fluttershy. "Hyah!"

C—TS—A—RD—R—F—PP—C—TS—A—RD—R—F—PP

Back with Chronicle, he was now defending himself against torrents of chocolate milk coming from all sides with a sphere barrier. For some reason, he was contemplating on why it was always chocolate milk and decided to ask him. "Hey, Discord. Is chocolate milk the only liquid you can make?"

"You're on the verge of defeat, and still you have the audacity to taunt me?!" Discord seethed as he unleashed a bolt of electricity from the clouds above.

_Uh oh._ The liquid instantly became electrifying, even though the fact that it was not water should've changed **something**. The electricity began to make cracks in the barrier, but he held it before it suddenly fell apart and he fell to the ground with a thud.

_"Pinkie! You were supposed to secure the rope!"_ the unicorn heard Rarity say.

An _"Oops."_ came in reply from the party pony.

"Don't screw this up now…" he growled.

"Talking to yourself?" Discord asked. "Now that's something even **I** would find crazy. I'd just make another me to do that." He then unleashed a gout of flames, which took the form of swarming ferrets.

_"Rarity, Pinkie, hold on!"_ Chronicle heard Applejack say as he formed another force field around himself. _"Y'all are slowin' her down!"_

_"Oh, Fluttershy, would you be a dear and __**fly faster, please?!**__"_ he heard Rarity cry out.

From what he could hear from the yellow pegasus, she was shuddering. "_I can't!_"

"_If you can't catch her, Discord wins!_" Twilight called. "_And everything Chronicle has done for us…will be for nothing!_"

Just as said unicorn heard her say that, he failed to notice said draconequus snap his talon…and a small column of earth erupted from underneath, slamming right into his gut.

Losing concentration in the barrier, he was sent flying from the attack, screaming in agony at the top of his lungs as he was plowed through a few "fire ferrets" before crashing into the ground. As he landed and tumbled, he began to pass out from the pain and battle fatigue. Just before losing consciousness, he heard the following words.

_"That…big…dumb…__**meanie**__!"_

And as he then heard the wind pick up from where those words were spoken, he was out like a light with a smirk on his face. He didn't intend to cry out in agony, but it turned out to be the proper incentive. As they had learned back when they went to request Basil to leave, a friend getting hurt was all that was needed for Fluttershy to push herself past her limits.

C—TS—RD—R—F—PP—D—C—TS—RD—R—F—PP—D

He didn't know how long he was out. He didn't even dream. But he suddenly felt an aching sensation at where his wings would be were he a pegasus. Then, something washed over his entire body, giving him enough energy to open his eyes. What he saw surprised him a bit, from what he could see from his hooves in front of him, he was surrounded by a red aura.

From what he could deduce in spite of his blurry senses, or most likely just hope, he just knew that they did it; Rainbow Dash was back. _Finally._ He gave a smile of satisfaction as the aura faded…

_"Wh…what happened?"_ he heard the speedster say. _"How's Ponyville? Where are the Elements? Did we stop Discord?"_

Before he could attempt an answer, he could feel himself get picked up by a taloned hand.

"Well, well, well, you proved way too much of a nuisance for my tastes," he could hear Discord say as he was positioned to meet his eyes. "Now that you're **absolutely** wiped, I'm sure whatever protection you have that is barring me from affecting you is gone."

Chronicle then felt a finger of Discord's lion paw on his forehead and he began to expect the worst. He could feel intense pain as it woke him up and he screamed. He could also hear the panicked cries of his friends as they presumably heard it through Surveillance.

However, it turns out that pain was just from the pressure of Discord's finger on his head. His mind was still the same, and when he weakly raised a hoof, he saw that his hoof was still deep blue. The next thing he knew, he was dropped to the ground. "Oww!"

"Guess I was wrong. You have stopped being amusing. I think I'll just leave you here and revel in your defeated state."

Severely beaten up, Chronicle tilted his head up and saw that he was in front of Discord's throne. The house of cards was to his left. And before he could think of anything else, he was run over by a stampede of long-legged bunnies. Now pain was all that was in his mind. He still had sufficient magic left, but with his objective accomplished, he decided to just rest as much as he could.

_It's up to you now, Twilight. Succeed in what I tried and failed to do._

Thankfully, he only had to wait only one hundred sixty seconds before he heard some voices cry out his name.

"Chronicle!"

There were galloping hooves and once they stopped, he saw his charge nudge his head to try and get him to stand up to no avail.

"Are you okay?" asked Twilight.

"If you mean 'okay' as in 'still alive', then yes," he managed to say. He noticed that all of them were now wearing their Elements of Harmony, the two pegasi in the air. "Just go and do your thing. I've done my part. Now it's time for you to do yours."

He turned his head back at Discord, who was filling his glass with chocolate milk from a cotton candy cloud. The action was normal enough, except for the fact that the glass filled from the top down rather than the bottom up. As the cloud moved away. "Chaos is a wonderful, wonderful thing," the draconequus said as he got ready to drink.

Twilight decided now was the perfect time to cut in. "Not as wonderful…as friendship!"

Discord gave a loud groan. "This again?" He drank his glass—literally, leaving the milk, which retained its cylindrical shape. The chunk of milk was then thrown back over his shoulder, exploding after it landed somewhere behind him.

"That's right!" said Applejack. "You couldn't break apart our friendship for long!"

Discord lifted a glowing lion-paw digit. "Oh, Applejack, don't lie to me." His powers dragged her ahead by the necklace she wore and hoisted her up for a face-to-face chat. "I'm the one who made you a liar."

_How could he not see it? Am I the only one who can, or has he become arrogant while I was busy hurting?_

Lifting his talon forearm, he gave all the others but Twilight a dose of the same to leave her standing alone with the downed Chronicle. "Will you ever learn?"

"No!" the stallion weakly cried out. _We've come this far, only to—_ His thoughts were interrupted when his supremely exasperated charge teleported herself to the center of the midair ring formed by the other five. Her next move caught the unbalanced tyrant completely off guard: a spherical pink force field that enclosed all six of them, breaking his grip, and floated them gently down to ground level.

The field flexed slightly like an inflated rubber ball, and as its lower portion phased through Chronicle, he felt his energy return once again. _Again… I just know I'm gonna drop for good sooner or later._ The 'bubble' flattened out upon making contact with the ground around him, this patch turning from blue checkerboard to ordinary green grass as the energy dissipates. He heard everypony touch down or hover within its perimeter.

Discord was slightly puzzled, but still amused, from this, even as the stallion got up on his feet.

"I'll tell you what we've learned, Discord," Twilight said as the seven ponies advanced. We've learned that friendship isn't always easy, but there's no doubt it's worth fighting for!"

He leaned down to them. "Ooh, gag! Fine, go ahead, try and use your little Elements. 'Friend' me. Just make it quick." A flash took him back to his throne, where flying pigs were passing by. "I'm missing some excellent chaos here."

Chronicle couldn't help but snort a bit at "'Friend' me.", then shook off the thought as he prepared himself, charging his hooves with a spell. He had no idea what the Elements of Harmony planned to do, but he intended to make his mark this time, and earn his place on the stained glass. _I know the Story Crew's likely to erase this piece of evidence upon sending it to their client worlds, but it will remain at least in my memory._

"All right, ladies. Let's show him what friendship can do!" Twilight said.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Pinkie cried out. As it was, she was standing under a raining pink cloud with mouth open to catch the sweet brown stuff. Her happy little gargle drew six confused/embarrassed/fed-up stares, but she quickly joined the squad with a fierce snarl, her face and mane now clean.

Pink light spread outward from Twilight's tiara to encompass the others, who actually meant business this time, but Discord's only reaction is a bored yawn. Now, though, the cutie-mark jewels began to throw off their own radiation, followed by beams that flew past Discord's head and leave him really bewildered.

"Huh. What's this?" he wondered, then saw more shots fly around. He also saw Chronicle's legs glowing brightly. "No."

Twilight's eyes blazed white, as do those of the other five as the entire group rose into the air. The stallion remained on the ground, but it was apparent that he was ready to make his move. A multicolored blast wave similar to that from a Sonic Rainboom exploded outward from them. In addition, a broad rainbow shot skyward. A second after that, Chronicle jumped right after it as it reached the peak of its arc. As it began to thunder down toward the incredulous whatever-the-heck-it-is that has turned Ponyville upside down and inside out, it also passed straight through the stallion.

"NOOOOOOOOOO!"

As Discord screamed the rainbow engulfs him and he slowly froze into solid stone, working from the tail up. He then looked up, and saw that Chronicle, his eyes glowing white like the others, was running down the rainbow as he primed his "magic horn blade".

"**For Equestria!**" He then let out a battle cry as he began to spin like a drill, taking the harmonious energy around him and speeding up until he felt himself collide with (and skewer through) the spirit just before the petrification reached his disbelieving, open-mouthed face.

From one who was seeing all this from the outside, the rainbow split into two copies that folded out and down to either side toward the ground. The hemisphere described by their movement grew in brightness until it had gone pure white.

When the light faded, Ponyville was back to normal. Grass, sky, houses—everything is back as it should be, and the Six bearers descended gently to it. Discord, on the other hand, took a rather faster and less pleasant trip down when his petrified form toppled onto the grass. A panting Chronicle landed a second later next to it.

He turned to the girls, who landed after using the Elements, gave a smile, and said, "We did it."

All of a sudden, the fatigue from his "finishing blow" as well as this entire ordeal crashed onto him once his adrenaline rush had passed and he began to pass out. Before he collapsed to the ground, he heard the six of them crying out his name, and a certain pegasus's worried face as she quickly closed the distance was the last thing he could remember before unconsciousness took over.

SCFIM—SCFIM—SCFIM—SCFIM—SCFIM—SCFIM

(1) I seem to have been putting a fair number of Big Lipped Alligator Moments here.

(2) If you'd like a time-frame reference, I believe the moment Discord put his lion paw behind his back was when he directly corrupted Mystic Shield.

(3) Yes. I've taken a page from _Dragon Ball_. And I've done a foreshadow of this too. I created the fight scene because I don't think it just takes a few seconds to go through all those letters, especially when Twilight's reading them out loud. Besides, prior to a certain Season 3 episode, I had intense hate for him and reveled in seeing fanart of him suffering. Still do now.

(4) If there are inconsistencies with the area, remember that this is Discord we're talking about. While this may be a weak excuse, I personally think that he would like his playthings alive rather than dead.

(5) I also took a page from _Pokémon_, specifically Pikachu, just to reflect my then-hate for him.

(6) Originally, I intended the fight as something for Chronicle to do while Twilight read the (presumably) many letters returned. But then I wanted to vent all my Discord-hate and ended up making it like this. From summer to winter, then a couple months more…estimating the number of letters I saw, I realize I might've lengthened the battle too much.

(7) Remember that the talon-snap isn't necessary. It's just for show-off.

nightelf37: Wow. I can't believe the insane length of this chapter in comparison to even "Fall Weather Friends". I was hard pressed to find fanfics where Discord actually fought at all, so I apologize if his strategy was OOC.

Here's a secret I'll confide to you, but won't be something that'll be brought up before I reach Season 3; Discord was actually frightened by his close shave with death from the "Time Seal Revenge". A quick-time spell between the circle's "release" and the beam's "annihilation" saved his hide. He also hid his fright and relief from that escape so that it wouldn't renew Chronicle's vigor.

I'm sorry for ending this chapter the way I did, but there will be two more chapters after this before I resume covering Season 2 proper. Hint, I'm not gonna start with "Lesson Zero".

See ya on Third!


	3. Aftermath 1: The Wounds That Remain

nightelf37: And here's the aftermath. I regret absolutely nothing from what I wrote last chapter. Well, if there was, it's the fact that I failed to foreshadow the details enough so that the events don't turn out to be from left field.

Disclaimer: I own only the following: My originally designed OCs, and anything that doesn't happen in the show proper.

Warning: Drink moderately.

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**Extra 1: The Wounds That Remain**

_"Final Words in a Dark Future"_

_If anybody's reading this, I will have already been long gone from the dimension of the living. In layman's terms, or laypony's, or just to put it simply, it means I'm dead._

_I have spent the past two to three years as a bodyguard-for-hire who also takes side jobs. Over the months, I have traveled far and wide and have met plenty of ponies. I have learned much through my charges, but not as much as when I entered the service of Princess Celestia where she would make a contract that would bind me to Twilight Sparkle._

_I know that I do not bear an Element of Harmony, but I have one thing they don't; experience in battle. Sure, Applejack and Rainbow Dash might give me a hard time, but I'm sure I can beat them if all bets are off._

_It may be too late or a moot point by now given the events that have led me to make this letter, but I now realize I have deeper feelings for one of my friends, and it's not with Twilight Sparkle, as much as a 'bodyguard crush' would imply. _

_I've been warned not to make strong attachments, but with the fact that the resident heroes' power is friendship, I felt I had no choice._

_Anyway…_

_Here's what happened. The Elements of Harmony were stolen. Twilight thought they were in the maze, and I thought otherwise. I voiced my opinion, but I couldn't split off from them as they needed me._

_And then after my friends wings/horns were removed, we all realized something else about me; I was immune to Discord's magic, which we all, even he, found puzzling. Nevertheless, I followed his rules just like the others. You may think I was lucky, but it only made the pain all the worse. Personally, I wish I could've been corrupted just like the others. In the maze, Discord cut us all off from one another, though I managed to stick with my charge. _

_"Stop for nothing. Stop for nobody. You'll know when it's me when I give the signal." Well, that was the basic gist of the warning I gave my friends. But did they listen? Apparently not. And for some reason, Twilight either doesn't realize it or she had been planning something and not telling me. Again. Really, why can't they tell me stuff? Is it because I'm a stallion? Is there something in me that makes them not deem me trustworthy sometimes? _

_Either way, my friends fell to his magic one by one. And each time, my body reacted negatively to the effects because of a bond with the Elements that has formed within me, probably due to my indirect exposure to them when they were first used to purge Nightmare Moon from Princess Luna._

_At the end of the maze, I had a mental falling out with Twilight and left her to go off on my own. I was so angry with her. How could she be so stupid?! I felt that they were so useless; that's why I left them to go off on my own and find help. That, and Fluttershy had been changed so drastically I couldn't bear to be in her presence. It was like a gut-punch to the heart._

_However, upon arriving at Ponyville, I realized things were much worse. Every step I took, everywhere I turned, every place I went, his magic had done serious damage. A few times I had to escape or fight, and everything I saw added another cut into my already aching heart. Zecora had vacated her home, although I didn't know how long she would last. And the Doctor was safe too, though one of his companions Derpy Hooves wasn't._

_Speaking of Derpy, she was the last one I confronted—a vicious mare with no love for her despaired daughters—before I saw a familiar flash of light. I somehow knew it was the Elements in action, but when it faded by the time I came, I saw Discord teleport off, and my friends break up. And finally, even as I rushed to stop it, I couldn't stop his magic from consuming Twilight completely. I was completely devastated and I did something I promised myself never to do. I cried in despair._

_I stopped eventually. It never helps if I keep at it for too long. I then checked my Surveillance to find answers. Each scene I witnessed was heart-rending, but upon seeing that Discord was __**directly**__ responsible for what happened to Fluttershy, I knew there was one thing I must do. He. Must. __**Die**__. Not just for Equestria or the worlds beyond it. This matter became personal._

_With that in mind, I set off to find him, even when the now corrupted Twilight said it was a hopeless cause. I didn't listen as I ran off. I didn't care anymore. All that mattered what that that draconnequus's life must end. I eventually found him, and gave him what for._

_As it was, Twilight was correct, but it didn't matter. I knew not if I was holding out for a miracle or just being plain suicidal. As it was, either it was the latter or the miracle wasn't going to rescue me. In any case, it was the end for me. In an out-of-character act of mercy, Discord permitted me to write this letter. _

_Since I was at his mercy, I had no other choice. Also, he had a large boulder over my head to crush me with. While it was too dull for him, given my invulnerability, he had no other choice either and he was growing tired of my persistence. Well, before he finally decides to crush me out of my misery, there is one final thing I have to say to him; He can go to the deepest pits of Tartarus for all I care._

_- Timmy "Chronicle" Timer, Status: K.I.A. (1)_

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The first thing Chronicle did at the end of such a horrible nightmare was fling himself from a lying-down position. The second thing was to look around, and realize that something was up, panting and looking around confused.

He lay in a low round bed, a fire was burning in the fireplace nearby, the entire floor was purple, and the walls were a royal blue.

"Where…am I?" he asked himself.

"I see you're finally awake," a soothing voice came.

He turned his head, and was surprised at who he saw. "Princess Celestia? Wait, awake? For how long have I been asleep?"

"Three days."

"Three days?!"

"From what I've observed, you've somehow used way too much magic than you should logically be able to. More than twice, I think."

This confused him a bit, but his mind was immediately on something else. "Wait. Discord! Where is he? Did we beat him?" All he received was a nod. "Okay. But why am I here in Canterlot instead of Ponyville Hospital?"

"The reason why you're here is because I wanted to talk to you about a few things."

"Huh?"

C—PC—C—PC—C—PC—C—PC—C—PC—C—PC

Two ponies began to walk down an hallway in the castle. One was basically the ruler of Equestria and possessed great power. The other was a mere unicorn who, while not possessing as much power, was well-versed in combat, and for some reason not part of the Royal Guard. The latter was also levitating a bottle of bourbon whiskey he requested from the kitchens and the former granted.

"So…your Majesty," Chronicle started. "What is it you wish to talk about?"

"About you," the princess replied.

"Me?"

"Yes, you."

"Uhh… what about me?"

"Well, it's about that burst of power I sensed in Ponyville. I know Twilight Sparkle's magical signature very well, and that surge I felt did not come from her or Discord."

Chronicle paused in his walk, the bottle still beside him. "And you're thinking it came from me?"

Celestia did so as well. "Yes. While reports of such things are rare, some books have records of exceptionally magically inclined unicorns performing a "rage-shift". This shift occurs when a unicorn's anger feeds into their magic to cause a physical change to the unicorn's body. There's no other unicorn I could think of with such exceptional magic than Twilight and you.

"Most rage-shifts are temporary and rarely utilized except only for expressing anger or intimidating another individual. Yours however, was not only longer-lasting, but your power seems to have been amplified immensely. At that moment, your power only fell short to mine and my sister's."

"Oh yeah, speaking of your sister, just where was she during all this?"

"Luna? Well, as it turns out, when Discord was set free, he cast a spell so that she wouldn't be noticed by any of us. And she was also incapable of making physical contact or forming any sort of message. She's currently recovering, as is everypony."

"I can see how maddening that could be. To be nothing more than a ghost, yet without their intangibility. Not to mention the prospect of a life forever alone, I could almost see Nightmare Moon returning." Chronicle shuddered at the thought as the two of them resumed walking.

"You know, you're the second mortal pony who has actually injured Discord."

"Oh? He did tell me about that one. According to him, she knocked out one of his teeth by kicking him at supersonic speeds. She died in the end though."

"Her name was Mimic. One of the greatest unicorns in the past. Before Luna and I discovered the Elements of Harmony."

"She must've been as valiant as I was. Maybe she didn't even do what she did out revenge for her friends… unlike me."

"We'll never know. Neither Luna nor I got the chance to know her well enough before Discord killed her."

"Oh."

A minute of silence ensued, after while Celestia decided to start up another subject. "I know I might've invaded your privacy doing this, but during the time you were unconscious, I took the time to study your magic. After learning that the rage-shift I felt came from you and how different it was from usual ones, I was had to say I was curious with what I discovered."

Chronicle was disturbed by this. "What did you see?"

"Your magic, while it works the same way an ordinary unicorn does, there is some sort of…difference when it comes to limits. Normal magic-users like them and alicorns like me have thresholds that stops us from using magic for casting spells for too long. As for you, you can keep on casting and casting for much longer without suffering overchanneling as long as you have enough magic in you."

The unicorn was a little confused with her explanation. "Uh…what?"

"Let me try this again. Typically, unicorn magic works like a generator; it keeps working until it overheats. For your magic, it operates like a device that runs on fuel; it only stops working when you run out."

"Ah."

At this point, the two found themselves at the throne room. Curiously, there were no guards. The two were now in front of a new stained glass window. "I saw how disappointed you were when you weren't depicted in the image that showed Nightmare Moon being defeated, no matter how hard you tried to hide it."

The new window commemorated the valor of the heroes who defeated Discord. At the bottom were the six Bearers of Harmony (Applejack without her hat, again), and at the top was the draconequus transfixed in the Elements' power. Above him however was another pony. It was a depiction of the unicorn who valiantly confronted the spirit to buy time for the Elements to be gathered together once more. And it showed him with his "magic horn blade" drawn, as if to deliver a finishing blow.

Chronicle couldn't help but smile and shed a single tear of joy; he finally earned his place on the stained glass. "Thank you, your Majesty." He turned to a clear window and walked towards it. "No words can express my grati—" He stopped short upon seeing something.

Through a window next to a full-length mirror, he found himself looking over the Canterlot Statue Gardens, where he and his friends entered the labyrinth and made a very critical mistake when they faced Discord. He could see his petrified form there, posing as one of the many statues. This made him frown. "Your Majesty, why is Discord out here in the garden? I figured that after all this you'd put him someplace much more secure."

"I understand your worry. But you see, no matter where I keep him, no matter how secure it is, the prospect of him being unleashed, even by accident, just keeps nagging me. I keep feeling I need to check on him to see if he's still imprisoned, especially after I had to banish my sister to the moon. Besides, the garden is on royal property, which is protected by my guards. If I had placed him in some other forbidden place, some poor pony might stumble upon him and accidentally release him."

"What about, say, a secret chamber in the castle?"

"Then I'd have to take a fair amount of time to make visits there, time I could have taken in running the kingdom. Also, same deal. That's why I put him in the gardens, where it's not only well-guarded, I can also just spend a few seconds to see for myself if Discord's still there or not."

"That…actually makes perfect sense."

"I also put him there as a monument to one of our greatest triumphs."

"I see." He then gave a sigh. "I very well know we won a great victory here, but this feels like my fourth greatest failure."

Celestia was curious. "Fourth?"

"I've had three before, though not as great as this. The first was when some assassins—out of many—carried out their mission on a charge of mine."

"Out of…many?"

"Yes. She was quite a big target, and I failed to protect her. Do you know why I use the -body suffix more than -pony? It's because of a wish I made on a shooting star—or was it a wishing well?—to try and protect her. Silly, I know. I wished that for at least one day, nopony would so much as harm her. I slacked a bit as a result, and that ended up in my charge's assassination. The reason the wish didn't work was because the successful assassins were not **ponies**, but a zebra-griffon duo.

"The second failure was when another charge of mine was kidnapped by cultists, who I now remember were supporters of Discord, I'm sure you know about that. I hadn't been paying enough attention during the kidnapping, as I had been busy beating the living daylights out of the cultists. By the time I realized she was gone, I took it to myself to rescue her. I think I killed a lot of them that day when I infiltrated their base. But it was all for naught, for by the time I found her, she had suffered…Cutie Fracture, and ended her own life days later."

"I'm sorry to hear that. But, you know, the day you rescued her was the day you eliminated the last of them."

"I guess that softens that blow a bit. Moving on…the third was when **I** accidentally killed my charge, who had a reputation of being a molester of mares. Not one of my finest times, even worse than Prince Blueblood. Despite constantly reminding her that I was a stallion, one night I found myself at her mercy. I had a rough tussle with her and…I knocked her head into a dresser. Luckily for me, the only witness to the scene was somepony who didn't really like my charge and let me go scot-free."

"That doesn't sound like something that would be like a great failure. Unless it was on your pride."

"…Oops. Must've confused it with another case. My real third greatest failure **did** involve a molester, but it wasn't my charge. Rather, it was a pony I was supposed to be protecting my charge from. She never forgave me after that and for a while discredited me, making it difficult for me to find a job." He turned to his bottle. "And now, I'm going to do… what I always do… whenever I suffer such a great failure."

"Drown your sorrows?" Celestia guessed.

"That's right. Just this one bottle, I promise." He prepared to open the bottle, not caring that the Princess of the Sun was right in front of him. "I'm pretty sure you did something like this after… Nightmare Moon. But I'm not gonna ask if it's true."

"Well, before you do that, there is something I'd like to ask you."

"Anything, Your Majesty."

He shouldn't have said that. "Where are you from, really?"

"Um…what?" He was genuinely confused with the way she asked him. He felt that giving the 'default' answer would be perceived as a lie.

"You're not the only 'foreigner' who has entered this world, you know. Your records were plausible enough, but that of your 'family' raised a few questions."

_What?! Dad swore that Uncle Reggie covered every agent so that the Undead Tax Exemption clause is averted. Personal records, official citizenship, birth certificates, everything. He's basically our professional fraudster, and one of the best at that. How could she have seen through them?_

Celestia noted his silence and surprised face and gave a face that meant she knew she was on the right track. "I seem to be onto something. Please, what is your purpose for being here? Do you or do you not have any ill intentions for being in Equestria?"

Chronicle was left speechless, and was hyperventilating. He hadn't been prepared for this, for having been found out. No Field Operative ever is. Normally, the Story Crew would 'swoop in' and do selective memory wipes, which would work even on somepony like Princess Celestia.

Before he could sputter any sort of reply, the mirror they were nearby suddenly had ripples, as if it were a pool of water. Once it stopped, there was a number.

_70.3 Kiimehertz_

Celestia raised an eyebrow at this, motioned for Chronicle to stay put, approached the mirror, leaned forward, and touched her horn to it.

The frequency of magic vibrated the mirror, ripples forming in the center and pooling outwards again, like a drop of water in a pond. Her reflection bent and wavered in the undulations, the form on the other side undergoing a change. For a few seconds longer, she held the frequency, before stepping back and taking another look. Standing on the other side of the mirror was—

_"I figured it would have come to this,"_ Lord Record Keeper, in his alicorn form, spoke.

"Father?!" Chronicle couldn't help but cry out.

_"Yes, son."_ Record turned to face him. _"After I sensed your…power surge, I just knew your discovery was inevitable."_ He then turned to face Celestia. _"I am addressed as Lord Record Keeper, but you need not call me by my title. It is an honor to meet you, Princess Celestia."_ He lowered his head in a bowing gesture.

Celestia seemed to be trying to hide the fact that she was stunned to see him, keeping a stoic face.

Record continued as he raised his head. _"I know I might have entered at an awkward time and probably a shock to see another alicorn, but I know what you were about to ask my son. Don't worry, I'll explain all you need to know. But before I can answer your question, I'd like you answer me this. I probably know the answer, but I'd like to hear it from you; what do you know of alternate worlds?"_

The princess was allowed a full minute to recover from the fact that somepony other than Prince Solaris was on the other side of the mirror. "It's…a pleasure to meet your acquaintance, Record Keeper. You seem to be familiar with this sort of mirror, and the fact that you were able to reach out to me shows that you know that I can communicate across worlds."

_"And what worlds have you been in touch with?"_

"Only one. That would be one where everypony's genders are swapped."

_"Would its ruler happen to be Prince—not Lord—Solaris?"_

There was a moment of silence as she was mildly surprised that he knew of him, then answered, "Yes."

_"I see. Before I begin, I would like to request that this conversation never leaves this room. __**Nobody**__, not even your sister, can know of this through you."_

"Through me?"

_"During your student's teleportation mishap that took them and my son to Prince Solaris's world, Chronicle had to do the same thing after a slip of the tongue of our pony assigned there."_ He was being careful in his words, not wanting to explain that that assigned pony was his daughter. Not yet.

Celestia was startled for a bit. "How do you know about that?"

_"Allow me to explain the nature of this…Timer family…"_

_Of course, after this, the Story Crew will come in and inhibit her memories of this incident so that it will not influence her decisions not related to alternate worlds. I'll be pulling plenty of strings here,_ Record thought as he began to explain in the form of a prepared cover story that would not revel their **true** (but not sinister) purpose.

He told Celestia that he, Chronicle, and the rest of the family are part of a multiversal police force tasked **mainly (not solely)** with preventing cross-world scenarios and off-world invaders. When the princess inquired on the incident Record mentioned he replied, _"For every one of those incidents that has happened, we have averted at least a hundred more."_

She almost asked him of his involvement with her faithful student and her friends before remembering that she gave him a contract for him to sign that assigned him to them.

[A/N: I really hate cutting off from here, but I don't want to go into the finer details of the Story Crew not covered by the Specials in the **(NOT) Chapter ##**s in **Shisno Chronicles: Friendship is Magic**. Partly because I'm still building up on them myself.]

C—PC—RK—C—PC—RK—C—PC—RK—C—PC—RK

Ponyville, Golden Oaks Library (which was about to be renamed Books and Branches Library again)…

The town was at peace again, although there were some loose ends left behind by Discord that weren't removed by the healing wave the Elements of Harmony did after turning him back to stone.

Some ponies needed extensive therapy after what he did to them, notably many of Mystic Shield's students, who had been turned into non-living objects, and Mystic himself, who was blaming himself for failing to protect Ponyville, even after being told that nopony had imposed that duty to him.

There was also some construction work to repair some of the damage not repaired by the healing wave. From what few guessed, the destruction was not something made by Discord and therefore wasn't undone when he was re-petrified. Oh, and there was a new train station linking Ponyville to Canterlot.

During the three days Chronicle was asleep in Canterlot, Twilight Sparkle had asked Pinkie Pie to arrange a party for the six of them, not only as a form of celebration, but also to patch any cracks in their friendship that have remained from what Discord did to them.

Right now however, she was reading The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide. The reason why was because she was curious about Chronicle's strange condition. To have some sort of bond with the Elements without bearing one themselves…does the book have any answers?

Finally, she seemed to find it, and began to read aloud. "Harmony Link. In the event that there is more than six ponies present during the activation of the Elements of Harmony to bond with their new bearers, a seventh pony who has established some sort of bond with the six may acquire the Harmony Link, which only works if the seventh pony's friendship with the six is strong.

"The Harmony Link operates when any of the bearers of the Elements is in imminent danger. First, an image of the 'endangered' pony will flash in their mind. Next, they will experience a 'symptom', which varies depending on which of the six bearers is in danger. Any part of the body, be it on the outside or an internal organ, is susceptible to a reaction of sorts, but none of them are fatal.

"Third, they will sometimes experience a fraction of whatever the endangered is about to experience. If the danger is in the form of mind-altering magic however, the one with the Harmony Link will experience a headache, its severity depending on the manner of the spell. On the other side of the spectrum, when a bearer under the influence of a mind spell is released from its effects, the Harmony Link acts up and follows the first two phases. In place of the third phase, a restorative effect is bestowed on the pony, effects also varying depending on the bearer.

"Cases of this are few and far between, so the information provided here should not be treated as conclusive evidence." (2)

Suddenly, she heard the sound of a pegasus-pulled carriage landing just outside. It made her pause in her reading. Usually, when she was so engrossed on a book, she wouldn't even notice anything louder than that until it actually bumped into/near her. But with Chronicle still in Canterlot, she was hoping for his safe return. They all were. Especially since he just passed out after Ponyville was returned to normal.

She exited the library, then made her way to her bodyguard's "training range"…and saw some royal guards. Four were pegasi guards at the carriage, and three were unicorn guards, and they were…'carrying' a statue that resembled Discord. It certainly startled her, even after another look told her that it wasn't the draconequus they worked so hard in imprisoning. For one, the base was deep blue and she could sense non-draconequus magic from it. For another, this statue's position wasn't the same; she didn't need a keen eye on details like Rarity to see that.

She couldn't help but ask. "Um, sirs." The pegasus guards turned to face her. "I can't help but ask what is this for?"

"Twilight Sparkle," greeted one of the guards. She didn't know it, but he was one of the guards during the Philomena incident. "We were ordered by Princess Celestia to bring this statue to this location. We haven't been given any further details though."

"I see." She wagered a guess; from what little she could deduce, this was probably a gift of sorts for Chronicle. Given his despisal for Discord, which was worryingly greater than anypony else's, he could probably use it for target practice and a means to vent his anger.

TS—TS—TS—TS—TS—TS—TS—TS—TS—TS—TS—TS

Back at Canterlot Castle…

_"…and now you understand why we had to keep all this a secret,"_ Record Keeper finished.

"I see," answered Celestia.

Chronicle, who hasn't opened his bottle and stored it in "hammerspace", had remained silent through the whole ordeal save for when his father asked him to answer a few questions.

_"Now that we have concluded this matter, I'll try and minimize the legal damage caused in my organization by your discovery. If you'll excuse me, it turns out that your male counterpart has found out my daughter as well. We will meet again someday."_ _Although depending on what the Story Crew decides to do, you probably won't remember me or any of this._

Record moved his horn to adjust the mirror's magical frequency (presumably to 'save' Timerity from Solaris's questioning) and the vision of him began to waver once more, the harmonic energies infused in the mirror wearing off. As the surface rippled back into its previous silvered form, she turned to face the blue more-foreign-than-she-thought unicorn, who faced her as well.

"Uhh…" He was interrupted by a knocking on the doors.

"Your Majesty, the nobles are here to conduct court with you," one of the guards called from the other side.

"I think I've spent a little too much time with you I nearly forgot my royal duties," Celestia said to Chronicle. "You're free to go."

"Thank you, your Majesty."

Just as he turned to leave, Celestia raised a hoof. "Wait. I want you to have this." As she put her hoof down, her horn flared and something appeared around Chronicle's neck. He held it up with a hoof, taking a good look at it.

It seemed to be a pendant held by a simple sturdy string. The 'jewel' depicted something akin to his own cutie mark, and was colored a deep blue like his own coat. From its design, it looked like it would've been what his Element of Harmony would look like if he had been selected as one of its bearers. Well, except for the pendant part. "This…" he sputtered.

"It's the least I could aside from putting you in the stain glass. You did say something about an award before the new contract, right?"

Chronicle remembered. It was during the party after Nightmare Moon's defeat, Princess Luna's return, and the knighting of his then-not-yet friends. "Right. Well, thanks." With that, he stowed his pendant into hammerspace, then made his way out of the room as the doors opened (having turned out to have been locked by the Princess), letting in the guards and Canterlot nobles, the latter looking at the blue unicorn in puzzlement as he passed them by.

C—PC—RK—C—PC—RK—C—PC—RK—C—PC—RK

Chronicle was wandering the streets of Canterlot, a destination in mind, and it wasn't the new train station. Not yet. As he entered a narrow alley, he located a certain shop he had been to before. A certain shop whose owner he (in a way) had met in the Grand Galloping Gala.

He walked up to the shop, opened the door, jingling the bell mounted above it, and entered. The room was filled floor to ceiling with random items. As he regarded the haphazard mélange, a voice greeted him.

"May I help you?" The unicorn turned to see the shopkeeper, who reacted upon seeing his face. "Oh. It's you. You're here for the 'elemental crystals', are you not?"

"Yes, sir." _Now I certainly need them. After Discord, I'm not taking any chances._

"I see." He walked over to the counter and began to dig into something behind it. He took out a saddlebag, opened it, and showed six spherical marble-sized crystals. "I know you asked to reserve an Ice crystal, but I'm afraid it's been taken. All I have left are Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Lightning, and a magical amplifier."

"They'll do." Chronicle then procured from "hammerspace" a large amount of bits in a bag. _After paying for this, I'll only have just enough for a ticket back to Ponyville, but it'll be worth it. Anything to make sure my friends will be safe._ "Will this be enough?"

"Yes." The shopkeeper took the entire bag, then shoved the one with the crystals to Chronicle, who stored them in "hammerspace" so they wouldn't be stolen. "Thank you for your patronage."

With what he needed to do done, he left the store without a word, then made his way to the train station, ordered a ticket, and waited. During his father's conversation with Princess Celestia, he asked her to write a message that he was coming home, and to send it after her talk with Lord Record Keeper is over. He also began to ponder another surprising revelation about him.

_F—L—A—S—H—B—A—C—K_

"This emblem?"_ Record said when Celestia inquired of his and his son's cutie mark. _"This is a symbol of our allegiance. It represents our force."_ He turned to Chronicle, making a face that said he was revealing something hidden from him for quite some time. _"We conceal our cutie marks due to protocol, which I am not allowed to confide to you."

_"That explains a few things," Celestia said. "I was wondering why he had flank stickers."_

_"I had what?" gasped Chronicle, then felt something be peeled away from his flank. He turned to see Celestia peeling away his __**cutie mark**__. Underneath it was…a different one. It still had the Story Crew Emblem (an orange circle depicting an open book inside), but it was inside a shield, and a sword was pointed downwards behind it._

_The unicorn tried to contain his surprise. _Was I a blank flank the entire time? Or have I contracted Cutie Shift sometime during the ordeal?

_E—N—D—F—L—A—S—H—B—A—C—K_

Chronicle continued to ponder. Of course, his 'turned-out-to-be' flank stickers have been replaced. _Should I tell me friends about it? Why didn't I ask Celestia what ponies who have experienced Cutie Shift did? What can my 'old' cutie mark mean anyway? No, it's best they do not know. Not yet. I'm still in turmoil over my failure. I can't have this adding up to my problems right now._

Just then, the train finally arrived. "About time," he muttered as he boarded it. Since he was in quite a slump, he paid very little attention to the details to remember them. Once inside the train, after making sure that it was headed to Ponyville, he 'took out' the bottle of bourbon, popped the cover open, and instantly started to down the whole thing.

C—?—C—?—C—?—C—?—C—?—C—?

At the train station in Ponyville…

Twilight and her friends, as well as Spike and Mystic Shield, waited for Chronicle to arrive. Pinkie Pie had a few flags up and was ready to celebrate Chronicle's Welcome Home Party.

"Are ya sure he's comin' home at this hour and not later?" asked Applejack.

"I'm sure," answered Twilight. "Princess Celestia herself sent a letter, although she did warn me that he might need some assistance."

"I wonder what that could mean," mused Mystic.

Just then, they saw the train arrive. Pinkie was quick to wave her banners in celebration. But when the train stopped and opened its doors, only a couple of ponies came out, and none of them were the friend they were waiting for. Thankfully, he emerged a few minutes later. But something was strange about his walking.

"Chronicle's sure walking funny," Pinkie said as she stopped waving her flags.

"He ain't walkin' funny," replied Applejack as he pointed at a levitated bottle next to him. "He's drunk!"

"Sweet Celestia," Mystic grumbled as they ran to him before he could drop. Rainbow Dash was the first to reach him and kept him steady as the bottle, now empty, fell from his grip.

"Oh my stars!" gasped Rarity as she went to his face. "Just how much did you drink, Chronicle?"

The blue stallion raised his head, his eyes glassy, "Just the one bottle. Trust me."

"He probably hasn't recovered yet from, well…" Fluttershy cut herself off as she looked at the others, all of them knowing just what she didn't want to say.

"Let's take him home," Twilight volunteered. "Come on, guys. Help me."

And that's what they did. They helped him all the way to the library and all the way up to his bed, where he ushered himself to it. The moment he felt the soft mattress and pillow, he was out like a light.

"What should we do now?" asked Spike.

"Let him rest," Twilight decided. "I'll talk to him in the morning."

C—TS—S—A—RD—R—F—PP—MS—C—TS—S—A—RD—R—F—PP—MS

Evening…

Chronicle woke up with a splitting headache. The lights were off, but there was enough moonlight to see by. He thought he could hear voices downstairs. Still a bit sleepy, he went down the stairs, cursing Twilight for not setting up a bannister yet, and made his way to the ground floor. He could see his friends and Spike talking about something. What it was he'll never know as some kind of force suddenly pushed the seven of them into the walls.

_What's going on?!_ Chronicle thought as he went on alert mode instantly, unsheathing his "blade".

His question was easily answered when Discord teleported directly into the middle of the library.

"Discord!" Rainbow shouted, immediately trying to fly towards him, but to no avail.

"Really? Discord?" the draconequus commented with the air of one who was merely talking about the weather. "I think we've known each other long enough for you to just call me 'Q'."

"Q?" Twilight asked.

"It was a nickname given to me in my youth. I could never figure out what it meant…" Discord admitted.

"Um, Discord? If you don't mind me asking… What are you going to do with us?" Fluttershy queried.

"Well, I'm going to give you a taste of your own medicine, so to speak. But first…" Discord walked over to Spike, "You're the dragon who can message dear old Celestia, correct? Here, send her this" He held forth a letter.

Spike did as he asked, immediately deciding Celestia would be the one pony they would need about now. And then his eyes turned to gaze at something.

Discord noticed it and swiftly turned around… catching Chronicle in the neck with his talon hand, who had jumped with the intent to sneak attack him. He then slammed him to the ground, ready to choke him. "I hate having to do this by hand…" He started tapping the unicorn on the horn repeatedly to prevent him from casting spells. "But given your immunity, I'm forced to do this to you."

"How did you escape?" he snarled.

"You see, this time, the Elements of Harmony weren't at full power because their bearers' friendship was still fractured from what I did."

"I swear when I get out, I'm gonna finish what I started!"

"If, you mean."

"No. When. I **will** get out of this!"

Just then, Celestia arrived via teleportation. "Discord!" she snarled, obviously angry at the draconequus.

"Ah Celestia, how nice of you to join us," he greeted, quickly hitting her with the same magic he used on the others.

"What do you want from us?" Applejack asked.

"It's quite simple. I'm going to do something I've never done before, but you have done twice. Have a guess."

"Ooh! Is it a party!" Pinkie answered.

"No. Guess again." Discord had the air of one who could do this all day.

"You're going to seal us in stone until the end of time!" Celestia growled.

"The end of time? You were going to keep me in there until the end of time?" Discord asked, sounding a bit hurt, "You were close. You all will get to have a day in my prison. It might just re-evaluate your opinions. Oh, except you Spike. You didn't have any part in my prison, so you're free to go. Luna is also exempt, as I believe the moon was enough. And Chronicle, I'm gonna find a way to do that to you too, but first…"

He snapped his lion paw and two things happened. One, Spike disappeared in a flash of light. Two, seven statues replaced the seven other ponies.

Unfortunately for Discord, seeing them all in stone was _just_ the motivation Chronicle needed. Instantly overflowing with anger, he screamed at the top of his lungs. His aura burst out and his eyes changed once more. As Discord paused in shock, the unicorn grabbed the draconequus's arm with his forelegs, then flared his horn. A flash ensued and they were both gone.

The two emerged somewhere above the Everfree Forest, the angry stallion right above the spirit as they began to fall.

"Impossible!" gasped Discord. "You managed to teleport **me**?!"

Chronicle didn't answer as they crashed through some trees and into the ground. Now free of the talon, he started kicking the spirit at the same spot where he delivered his final blow before Discord was re-petrified. He then started bouncing on him, something Pinkie sometimes does when excited. Of course, given that he was trying to hurt Discord, his legs were landing with more force, bolstered further with magic.

"I am going to enjoy this!" Chronicle said with an evil grin. It turned into a frown when Discord melted into the ground, emerged from it like it was water, and started floating away. "You won't escape from me!" He then pursued him further into the forest.

The chase went on for a few minutes. Sometimes the draconequus would teleport out of sight but somehow Chronicle would find him again. Discord seemed to be looking for something, but the unicorn wasn't going to let him succeed. Finally, he found him standing up and holding something behind him. With a grim face, he charged head-on.

He counted on Discord flipping that object to his face once he was close enough and so the moment he thought he moved, he teleported right behind the draconequus…only to find himself staring in the eyes of a cockatrice. And this one had been affected by Discord somehow. Unfortunately for Chronicle, he **wasn't** immune to "stone gazes", and he felt himself begin to stiffen near-instantly. The last thing he felt was Discord catching his stone form and backpedaling from his velocity. (3)

C—TS—S—A—RD—R—F—PP—PC—D

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"

For the second time, Chronicle flung himself from a lying-down position. He found himself in his bed. And miraculously, Spike and Twilight didn't stir from **their** sleep. Also miraculously, he wasn't feeling any hangovers.

He put a hoof to his head and gave a sigh. _Ugh. Stupid nightmare. I need to vent._ Getting up from bed, he jumped down to the reading room, skipping the steps, then teleported to his training range. Unbeknownst to him, Twilight did stir and his teleport woke her up.

He rematerialized just outside the training range…and was glad he did. In the center of the range was a statue with the likeness of Discord, but his position was different. Also, its base was deep blue, which made him wonder. He quickly dismissed the thought, drew his "blade", and began slicing the statue with a quick slash combo.

It quickly fell apart, the pieces dropping to the ground. A few seconds later however, the statue's base glowed and a purple flash came. Once it was gone, the statue was back to normal. Chronicle was both miffed and excited from this, miffed because seeing the statue come back together began to flare a bit more of his hatred for Discord, and excited because he could vent his anger again and again.

"Chronicle?"

"Hmm?"

He turned to see Twilight looking at him worryingly, standing just outside the training range. "What are you doing?"

"Just venting my anger. It's what I do after a twice-in-a-row failure, aside from drinking." Before she could speak up, he continued. "I know in the end we actually won and defeated Discord, but the fact remains that I failed to protect you from him. Not only that, I also failed to avenge you for what he did."

"I don't understand."

"There's no way you could. It's a burden I bear from bearing a 'fighter's mentality'. And there's a difference between being a fighter, like me and perhaps Mystic Shield, and being able to fight, which I know _all_ of you are capable of. The difference is while you can fight to defend yourselves, it's not in your hearts to end a life so casually. When you're forced to do so, it's a huge matter every time, and if done wrong can turn you to a criminal.

For me, it's just part of what I do. Yes, I might feel some guilt over doing in anyone higher than what I call 'mooks', but I just tell myself that if I don't do this, more lives will be at risk. I also try to finish them off swiftly, so that they wouldn't have to suffer. Discord is a different case though.

"When I fought him, I wasn't fighting for our friendship. I was fighting for my friends. And friendship wasn't my drive. It was…revenge." Chronicle dealt a few more 'slashes' on the Discord statue replica and let out a deep sigh. "It's like this, Twilight. I don't forgive him for everything he did to **all** of Equestria, but what I can't ever let him get away with is breaking **and** mentally **raping** the six of you, not to mention most of Ponyville, and turning you into the antitheses of your respective elements. That was my fuel for revenge. And no matter how much I try, I just can't get it out of my head."

Chronicle turned his head to face his charge. "I know it's all in the past and that I should put it behind me, but that's easier said than done. I hold nothing against any of you because I can easily pin the blame on Discord doing his magic on your minds. His brainwashing caused our friends, especially Fluttershy, to think and act the way they did by force. I admit he played mind games with them, but that all turned out to be unnecessary after I saw he can brainwash **directly**."

Twilight didn't need to ask how he knew; with his Surveillance, he can find out.

He turned away and walked up to the statue. "The same can't be said for me, since he didn't even try to mess with my mind as far as I can tell. Every decision I made was my own, and mine alone. If I was influenced by anything, it was my own desperation to stop him and eventually hate and desire to kill him. He may have made it more likely for me to do what I did, but in the end it was all me."

He turned his entire body around so that he was comfortably facing Twilight. "I'm glad I had this talk and I know you'll all be working on…'re-harmonizing' me." He gave a weak smile. "Just wanted to know what you'll be…up against, so to speak." The two unicorns looked up to the sky and at the moon, which was glowing rather brightly tonight. "It's late. we should go to bed. I'm sorry to have worried you."

Before Twilight could speak to him, he teleported away. She gave a sigh, knowing that he was **not** feeling all right. But with what he has told her, she'll find a way to help him come to terms with his hatred. This **cannot** be healthy.

SCFIM—SCFIM—SCFIM—SCFIM—SCFIM—SCFIM

(1) The "letter" in the beginning is based on the Discorded Ponies Series in the Pony POV Series. I decided to have a bit of fun with it.

(2) Very little is known about the Elements, but I don't think that the two Princesses were its first bearers, with Twilight et al. the second. For this story, I assume there were other bearers in the past before the Princesses. Besides, I need **some** sort of explanation behind what Chronicle had been experiencing.

(3) The second dream sequence was derived a bit from Discord's Return by Triple-A-Battery from deviantART.

nightelf37: Yeah, it's terrible, I know. Too much info dumps, not enough story. I still regret nothing. Cutie Fracture and Cutie Shift come from "Waking Nightmares". After next chapter, it's back to my usual format. The format I'm most comfortable with; based on canon episodes. I have a special Author's Note in the FiMFiction version of this story that I cannot place here because spoiler tags don't exist in this site. Please go there to see some _Disclosable Information on the Story Crew_. See ya on Third!


	4. Aftermath 2: The Dangers of Vengeance

nightelf37: After this, it's time for Season 2.

Disclaimer: I own only the following: My originally designed OCs, and anything that doesn't happen in the show proper.

Trivia: Chronicle's birthday is November 29, the day I published his profile on deviantART. (fav . me / d4hn54j) Remove the spaces.

SCFIM—SCFIM—SCFIM—SCFIM—SCFIM—SCFIM

**Extra 2: Dangers of Vengeance**

Daytime…

_Okay. Time for a spells test._

Chronicle stood in front of the Discord statue in his training range. It had been 'delivered' by Princess Celestia as a gift. The scars of his defeat still hurting, even after it's been two weeks since then. He hoped it healed, but apparently not.

Ever since the dream where he got petrified by a Discord-enhanced cockatrice, he's been getting other nightmares. In each of them, he was being hopelessly beaten by Discord. Sometimes it was by his friends turning against him, sometimes it was by befalling a(n un)natural disaster, sometimes it's being suffocated/drowned by cotton candy/chocolate milk, and sometimes Discord himself was doing the beating.

His family hasn't been in touch with him since Discord. A 'dream letter' from Lord Record Keeper told him that there had been an 'outbreak' of draconequui in most of the Equestrias they were on. A few have even invaded Hub Equestria and crossed over into the others. It took a good fraction of the Story Crew's RWCA (Reality Warper Control Agents) to stop them and even convert a few to their ranks.

As with most invasions, there have been casualties, a few of them Timers, a couple of worlds considered lost causes, and even one revelation that one of the Equestrias was actually a subcontinent of a client world sent into a pocket dimension by that world's Discord (after that Discord was defeated, it was sent back to that client world, which itself no longer became treated as one due to this). Also, the portal mirrors the family would normally use to travel to Hub Equestria and back have been thrown out of whack from the attack, causing mass fluctuations both in space and time. Transportation between worlds was extremely dangerous, even by dreamscape, which uses the mirrors as a means to link the family's minds.

There have also been time portals that were opened due to all the reality warping, and even a few have been sent a few years ahead/back in time or rendered in a state of stasis.

While Lord Record was busy fixing up home base, Timerity had experienced problems identical to Chronicle's and was taking it much harder than he was. Apparently, either "Eris" was "bitchier" than Discord, or she had a greater hatred for "her" draconequus than he did for "his". Mystic Wand was spared from this crisis, but he was currently focused on a huge project given by his Princess herself, and he still didn't socialize that well. Blue Diary was spared as well—his world's Discord not having run loose—but due to the portal mirror problem, he was unavailable, not to mention his world having also been sent forward in time and under stasis thanks to an off-world draconequus. Their mother Ebony Spell was busy consoling her world's Elements of Harmony, who were recovering slower than the ones in his.

He banished those thoughts as he began to list his arsenal in his mind.

_I already know my blade's strength, telekinesis power, barrier sturdiness, teleportation range… Let's start with my magical clone limit._ He flared his horn, then summoned as many clones as he could. Six of them now stood around him. _Okay. Six is good._ He then had them line up. _Water-walking spell, cloud-walking spell… no need to test that. Binding Circle._

One clone began to draw a large circle with his hoof, making various designs in it as well. Once that was done, two clones cast the spell, one at the bare ground and the other at the drawn circle. Two "magic circles" formed. The magic exuding from them showed him that not only was the one in the pre-drawn circle more cost-efficient, it was more powerful. Also, he realized that a binding spell on a pre-drawn circle is self sustaining; it's just that the first time he performed it, it was on Nightmare Moon, whose own magic had enough potential to break out were it not for him maintaining it.

Satisfied with the results, Chronicle had them move over to the back of the line. _Okay, now for the enhancement spells._ He flared his horn again and his legs began to glow. _Testing physical strength._ He approached the statue, got up on his hind legs, reared a foreleg, then landed it on the stone. The resulting impact made him wince, but he saw that he made a crack on the statue. Hooves were certainly tough.

_Let's skip running power, and go for jumping power._ He had one clone do just that, and then leap as high as possible. At the apex of its jump, the clone teleported himself back down on the ground.

_Now what else do I got? Enhance vocal power, decrease weight on items, rain-drinking spell, magic transfer, pinpointing spell, Glimmer Wings…_

Deciding to check Surveillance, he took a look around to see if there was anybody who would see him with it. To his disappointment, there was Twilight Sparkle, and she was making his way to him. Giving a silent sigh, he dismissed all of his clones.

"Chronicle," she greeted.

"Hey, Twilight."

"Having fun with that statue there?"

"I guess you can say that."

"Well, Mystic Shield is here, and he's wanting an explanation as to why you haven't come over or even sent a magical clone in your place."

The stallion smacked his face with a hoof. "Dammit, I forgot."

"Well, you better limit your time with the statue and find some other way to spend your time that **doesn't** involve fighting." She turned around, then gestured for him to follow. Deciding to take a break as well, he followed.

C—TS—C—TS—C—TS—C—TS—C—TS—C—TS

In the library…

"So…"

"I was spending too much time with my gift from the Princess. At least I think it's from them."

"It is. The royal guards brought them in themselves while you were at Canterlot. I was there to see it."

The three unicorns were at the ground floor of the library, reading books. As expected of her, Twilight had loads ready. Mystic only had a hoof-ful, while Chronicle had at least a dozen, all of them books on spells.

"Isn't this fun?" said Twilight. "Reading book after book, filling our minds with knowledge…"

"Sure is." Mystic agreed, then faced the other unicorn in the room. "Chronicle, about what I did…"

Chronicle gave an exasperated sigh. "For the last time, Mystic, I do not hold anything against you for anything you did when you got corrupted by Discord. So don't worry about it. Just let it go."

"Easy for you to say. If what Twilight said is true, you never got corrupted."

"Which makes my suffering all the worse, because I had to see everybody I care about fall to his magic, you before my very eyes. And I was helpless to prevent it. I just feel mocked by fate by being spared just to experience all of this, you get what I'm saying?"

He was answered by awkward silence as the two purple unicorns turned to face each other, then at him, then they shook their head solemnly.

"Figures." _Hmm…these spells seem useful. __**Very**__ useful. I gotta try these out._

The two purple unicorns turned to each other again, and the male one said, "I'm worried about him. All those books are on spells."

"What's wrong with that?"

"It's just that those books are either combat-oriented, or the spells within can be applied in combat."

"I don't see a problem in tha—" It then hit her. "Oh. We need to find a way to get him to see reason."

"Yeah," agreed Mystic.

C—TS—MS—C—TS—MS—C—TS—MS—C—TS—MS

The next day…

Chronicle was at the training range again, this time with one of the books he read yesterday with him.

_All right. The tether spell. Apply to the tail, and operate like a lasso or whip. Use to grab stuff._ With that in mind, he took out a lasso, which he hadn't used since the Iron Pony competition. _I hope I'm not too rusty,_ he thought as he tied the holding end to his tail, then started twirling it, getting a feel of it before starting his tether spell.

Some of the details slipped his mind however. A rope made out of magic emerged, but from his horn instead of around the lasso as he thought. This startled him a bit and the lasso on his tail dropped to the ground. _Oops._ Remembering the next steps, he lashed his head and willed it to grab a shovel. The 'tether' went straight for it, grabbed it by the handle, and contracted, taking the shovel with it. Unfortunately for Chronicle, it ended up flying straight for his head, thankfully smacking him with the flat end instead of the sharp edge.

He rubbed his head for a few seconds, then started swinging his shovel about with the tether spell, getting a hang of how it works. After taking twelve minutes to get accustomed to using it with his horn, he tried to figure out how to 'pass' it to his tail. It turns out that just thinking of it once the tether was cast turned out to be just what he needed to do. Just like that, another magic tether was now 'tied' to his tail.

Letting go of the lasso, Chronicle began to practice some more with his tether spell. Grabbing an old heavy tome with his tail tether, he pulled it toward him, then stopped it from hitting him with telekinesis. Using his magic tethers, he swung his bludgeons at the Discord statue, breaking off parts from it and/or breaking his "weapons". Whenever that happens, he just takes another. That's before he noticed something on the base of the statue.

_Now how did I miss this?_

There was a control panel of sorts, containing a few knobs large enough to bite into and turn. One was set to "solid stone", with its other settings being "ballistic gelatinous material", "iron", "plasticine", and "smoke". This made him curious. Using telekinesis, he 'turned' the knob to "ballistic gelatinous material". Upon that, a wave of magic washed over the statue, though no noticeable changes were seen aside from the texture.

Deciding to test it, Chronicle levitated the shovel and 'shoved' it into the statue's neck. It dug itself into it quite easily. Using the magic tether still tied to it, he pulled it out successfully. As it was, the magic tether spell can be manipulated around like he was using telekinesis on a rope. Meanwhile, the gash he made on the statue with the shovel vanished.

After one third of an hour, he was satisfied with what he can use the magic tether for, he went for the next spell. _Wind Blast. Pretty straightforward. It's just like the magic shot, but you shoot a blast of air instead of your own magic. Now how do I test it out? Oh, I know._ He walked over to the statue's control panel, and adjusted the knob to "smoke", wondering how it works.

Upon looking up, he saw that the statue was now smoke, but it retained its shape thanks to a magical aura around it, which was colored blue like its base. Chronicle backed up a bit, then started on the spell. He focused the same way as he does the magic shot spell. Instead of forming magic however, he 'compressed' the air just in front of him, then fired at the "statue". The compressed air made a hole through it, which reformed in a few seconds.

Now familiar with how to execute it, Chronicle fired air blast after air blast, gradually getting faster and faster as he slowly familiarized himself with the workings of the spell. Suddenly…

"Hey, Chronicle!"

He immediately turned to the source of the voice, forgetting that he was still shooting air blasts… and accidentally hit Pinkie Pie six times, making her reel back as she fell over. He gasped as he ran over to her. "Pinkie! Shouldn't you know by now that it's dangerous to interrupt me when I'm practicing? I might've—"

"I'm fine," Pinkie chirped as she got up. "My Pinkie Sense told me that the air blast wasn't lethal."

"That doesn't excuse you from doing what you did. It can't protect you from everything. Apparently it didn't protect you from the danger of what Discord was capable of because you were **so into** his antics."

"Sorry." This time, she seemed to mean it.

"Regardless of instincts, it is not proper or even safe to interrupt somebody who is practicing combat skills. As you just saw, I don't have enough precise control to just suddenly stop when I'm—as Rarity would say—in the zone." _As a precaution, I'll form a barrier around the area so that I can't harm anybody outside._

"Okay."

"Now what is it that you want?"

"I was going to ask about what theme would you prefer for your next birthday."

"Oh." During his previous birthday as a Field Operative for Equestria, he had celebrated at Hub Equestria with his family and thus she wasn't able to hold a Pinkie Pie party for him. "Tell me, do you know the group P3?" (1)

Pinkie seemed to lighten up. "You mean the idol singers famed in Baltimare, Fillydelphia, and Manehatten, also known as the East Coast? I do now! You **did** dress up as one of them last Nightmare Night, right? Sound Wave was her name, was it?" That mood was dampened when he frowned at her. "Are you still mad at me about that? I already apologized. And there was that new agreement we made, something about me bringing out stuff at your command."

"Yes. I'd like a P3-themed party. If possible, though I doubt you can, maybe having a vinyl record with some songs by them would work too."

"All right!"

"Anything else, Pinkie?"

"Nopey-dopey!"

"Then we're done here." Chronicle began to walk away, back to the training range. Once he was inside its bounds, he conjured a self-sustaining force field around it, learning the spell from Twilight. "I'll be home for dinner. Okay?"

"Okie, dokie, lokie!" Pinkie then pronked away. (2)

Once she was gone, Chronicle gave a sigh of relief. _Good riddance. I need to make more precautionary measures to ascertain that even_ she _won't interrupt me. I need this training. I can't allow any more interferences. My friends don't understand. I don't think even Mystic Shield can understand. My entire family's busy from the Great Draconequus Outbreak. I have to be strong. Strong for them. Strong for Equestria._

C—PP—C—PP—C—PP—C—PP—C—PP—C—PP

The next day…

Chronicle was trying out another spell he learned from the books he picked up two days ago. _Small Burn Trail._ A small beam was emitted from his horn, which created a small burn on the ground. He aimed the beam around as he was using it as a writing tool to form a magic circle. He then did the same thing in the air, 'drawing' a circle of fire that just floated there.

_Good. I can form circles to make the binding spell easier to maintain._ He thought as he started using it on the Discord statue, which was at the "iron" setting. _Disrupting the circle only _slightly_ increases the effort I need to maintain a binding circle._

"Chronicle." a voice came.

The stallion groaned and turned around to see Twilight inside the training range, even though the barrier was up. Apparently, she teleported in. _I'm gonna have to look up a means of preventing teleports into the barrier._ "What is it, Twilight? Can't you see I'm busy?"

"I know that, but don't you think you're being a bit too—"

"Obsessive? Says the pony who was once one."

"Come on. I'm no longer as bad as I once was thanks to you and the rest of our friends."

He raised an eyebrow. "Your point being…"

"You all taught me the dangers of my past lifestyle, and you're falling down a path similar to mine."

"Since when were you this perceptive of the lives of others?"

"Is it wrong to worry about you?"

"I don't wanna talk anymore." Chronicle then fired some magic into his barrier, which quickly shrunk until it passed through Twilight, then he expanded it again, slowly this time as it pushed her away. "I'll be home for dinner. And if you try and teleport again, either yourself, me, or anybody else…" He purposely trailed off, his threat made very clear. He didn't know if she could actually teleport anyone aside from herself, but with her expanding knowledge and magical prowess, it was a fair possibility.

Twilight only nodded in response as she backpedaled away from the barrier and jumped over the range's fence before she could be sandwiched between the two. She then ran until he could no longer see her.

_Thank goodness for that. Twilight wouldn't understand. This is not something an intellectual can solve. Only a fighter like me can. Because I know what it feels like. I hope Father can resolve the issue soon so he can help me._

C—TS—C—TS—C—TS—C—TS—C—TS—C—TS

The next day…

"Drat. This is harder than I thought."

Chronicle was trying two more spells, this time not combat-based, but mobility-based, which still made it applicable for battle. Right now, he was trying a spell that would enable him to "double jump". It was a simple spell, really. At the apex of his jump, he would cast the spell, which would conjure a temporary platform for him to land on, which would only last long enough for him to jump again. For some reason, he cannot cast it more than once in a row without dropping on something solid first.

Currently, he was having trouble getting the timing right. Sometimes it was too early and he would find his jump instantly arrested as the platform spawned through his feet. Other times it was too late and his fall was temporarily halted by the same thing. And the few times he got it on time? He had been too exhilarated on getting the timing right that he failed to jump again on time and fell.

Shaking his head, he tried one more time. At the apex of his jump, he quick-cast the spell. The moment his feet made contact with the temporary platform, it took everything in him not to feel exhilarated. Thankfully, he managed to successfully perform the jump…and landing on the ground without hurting himself. _Good. Need a little more practice._ With that, he continued jumping, practicing the double jump spell. Before he could get the hang of it though, he landed on something that definitely was not solid ground but a pony.

He looked down to see that Pinkie Pie had went below him, meaning he was on top of her. He didn't even bother thinking of how she bypassed the barrier, chalking it up to her weird abilities. "Hi!"

Frowning without a word, he cast a binding circle below them, then jumped to the side, leaving his friend pinned. Pinkie attempted to pull herself out, but failed, even as Chronicle began using his burn trail spell to 'trace' his binding circle's outline. "Pinkamena Diane Pie," he said. "Did I not warn you the day before yesterday not to interrupt me while I'm practicing?"

Pinkie just responded by quivering her eyes and making a puppy dog face.

He refused to face her, though he saw a glimpse through his peripheral. "Don't give me that look. It's your own fault you didn't listen. You don't ever know me to make jokes in this manner, right? Unfortunately for you, I only know how to teleport myself and items near me, so I'm giving you five seconds to get the hay out of here before I decide to practice **on you** to see if I can take you on with your Toon traits."

He stepped away, turned to finally face Pinkie eye to eye, his glower fearsome. He then let the binding circle go, releasing the earth pony before starting his count. It took a "Two" for her to get the message and she zipped away, leaving a cloud of dust. _I won't have to worry about her anytime soon. She's too much of a nuisance when she doesn't know to shut up. This is a very serious matter. Something she wouldn't understand. So long as I don't anger her, I'll be fine._

C—PP—C—PP—C—PP—C—PP—C—PP—C—PP

An hour later…

Chronicle got the basics of the "double jump" down pat, so now he decided to go for the "wall stick", where he would be able to do exactly that. However, the book stated that he would not be able to cling to a wall, but it should help if he is going to run along them.

Starting the spell, he ran next to the outer wall of the library, the only vertical surface available to practice on. Casting the spell on the surface of his feet, so as to avert Magical Sickness (which he doesn't have) as instructed, he then planted his feet on the wall, all while still running. He failed to execute it properly and fell on his side. "Oww…"

Getting up, he tried again. Again, he failed. The third time, he managed to stick one hoof to the wall before falling again. The fourth, just two. The fifth, he was able to make a couple of steps before gravity pulled him down. Before he could proceed with the sixth, he sensed somepony _knock_ on the barrier.

"What is it now?" he groaned as he turned around…and saw Mystic Shield.

"May I come in?" the other unicorn asked.

"…All right." Chronicle shot a beam of magic at his large dome barrier, which modified its 'settings', then said, "You may enter."

Mystic took a cautious step through, then pulled the rest of him inside. He then walked up to his co-teacher and close friend. He could tell that he was rather impatient right now. "Chronicle, I know I don't understand the pain you suffered from Discord and I know my pain can't begin to compare with yours, but the point is that you're using too much time on your training."

Chronicle didn't give so much as a reply.

"Look, I'm not saying you should stop. Just don't let it dominate your life."

Still no reply, just a harsh face.

"If you won't even listen to me, why did you let me in to begin with?"

And still no reply.

"Since when have you become irrational? I've always known you to be the one with the clear head when your friends don—"

He was suddenly cut off when he heard a familiar blade formed itself inches before Mystic's neck. The purple unicorn glanced to see another Chronicle having unsheathed it, ready to strike. He also realized that the one he was talking to was

"What are you doing?!"

"Fight me."

"What?!"

"Fight me! I need moving, thinking targets to practice on!"

Mystic broke out in a cold sweat. "You're scaring me, Chronicle. And even if I were to accept, you have me in a position where you would instantly win."

The blue unicorn withdrew his blade, dismissed his clone, then flash-stepped so that he now faced Mystic. "All right. Now let's fight."

"No."

"No? What do you mean, no?"

"I mean no. You're not right in the head." He secretly cast a minor barrier spell at his neck. "I've seen one of my old friends suffer the same way you are now. He may not have experienced the same suffering you have, but—"

Mystic wasn't able to finish as Chronicle unsheathed his "blade" and struck, which would've made him choke instead of literally lose his head. It hit the barrier and sent him reeling back so fast he flipped over. Thankfully, he still managed to land on his feet.

He had to act fast as Chronicle was now charging straight for him. In an instant, he formed a barrier around himself, stopping his attacks, then quickly backed away as his friend continued to push him…and was able to leave the confines of the large force field. Chronicle stopped just at the edge of his barrier, and watched Mystic dismiss his own, then frantically flee.

Once he was gone, the mare-faced stallion gave a sigh of relief. _That should get rid of him. I'm sorry, Mystic, but if you can't commit yourself to help me, I cannot count on you. …I cannot count on anyone to protect my friends, not even my friends or the Princess. There is only me. (3)_

C—TS—C—TS—C—TS—C—TS—C—TS—C—TS

Afternoon at Mystic Shield's Self-Defense Academy For Unicorns…

The dojo's owner as well as Twilight and her friends gathered around the tatami mat, the bookworm having brought them all together. They chose the dojo because they knew Mystic would want to involve himself. Spike was busy at the library, and frankly Twilight wasn't sure she wanted to involve him if their discussion eventually led to— She shrugged off the thought.

"What are we goin' to do about Chronicle?" sighed Applejack.

"Yeah," agreed Pinkie. "He's not being the nice guy he often is. Being more serious, even. I tried being happy around him, but it just seems to make him even more mad."

"I tried talking to him, but he just pushed me away," added Twilight.

"Same with me." Mystic. "He even demanded I fight him. Not as frightening as breaking a Pinkie Promise or the Stare, but it spooked me regardless."

"I went in for a scheduled duel, but unlike most of our 'fights', he took me down in less than three seconds!" Rainbow Dash. "It's like his combat abilities have went up by twenty percent! Maybe more!"

"I was going to talk to him as well, but…the way he was attacking that new statue of his, it scared me." Fluttershy.

"And did anypony notice his hair?" Rarity. "It looks a bit disheveled, like he had even less focus on making himself presentable than normal."

"Just like you to notice that, Rarity," commented Applejack.

"Regardless, given the present circumstances, persuasion doesn't work, it would be wrong to tempt him out of this, trying to cheer him up just makes it worse…" Mystic then swore. "Dammit, it's like our trip to the mountain all over again, except this time, we can't scare our target out of making the problem." He glanced at Fluttershy while saying this. "I only see one choice; I'm pretty sure you all know what I'm about to say, and I know that maybe only one will be willing to do it."

Twilight answered for everypony. "Are you saying we have to…" Gulp. "…fight him?"

Mystic only gave a solemn nod, eliciting a few soft gasps from the more sensitive mares. "Yes. I can't take him on by myself because he's just too good. Rainbow Dash can't either if she's telling the truth. We all need to reach out to him."

The six mares turned to one another. While Mystic Shield wasn't part of their circle, there was one thing he had in common with them; Chronicle was their friend. And you were supposed to help your friends when they need it. And while Chronicle doesn't think that way, he certainly needs them now.

Rainbow was the first to respond. Placing a hoof forward, she said, "Count me in. Separately we don't stand a chance, but together I know we can do it."

Applejack was next. "I'm in too, sugarcube."

Pinkie Pie. "All for one, and one for all!"

Twilight and Rarity stepped in as well. "Normally, I say we should send a letter to Princess Celestia, but I don't know if that would fix the problem or make it worse," said the former.

"I might have to agree with that," said Mystic. "Who knows what would happen if everypony was to find out that he **battled** Celestia and/or Luna, or worse, even **won**? No, it's best we keep that as a back-up and try and solve the problem ourselves." He turned to Fluttershy, then noticed that she hasn't stepped in. He walked up to her "Fluttershy, I know you're against this more than anyone, but we could use your help."

"Wh-wh-why? I don't even know what I can do to help him."

"Now, I know you were lying when you apologized for having to use the Stare on me. You **do** have control over it, and as much as I hate to say it, it's our best bet in getting him to come to his senses."

"I might have to agree with Mystic here," said Twilight as she and the others turned to the yellow pegasus. "I know his drive to better himself involves all of us, but from what he said to me, I think **you're** his main reason."

"You know, for a long time after the meteor shower the night before Twilight got Owlowiscious, I noticed him spend a bit more time with you, and sometimes I can see him being…flustered sometimes," Rarity added. "Now that I said it, I'm sure he's going to be mad at me about this."

"I think he needs all of us to be there," Mystic said to Fluttershy. "You especially. I know you don't want anypony to get hurt, but that would be unavoidable given the situation. Please."

The pegasus was given a pleading look, and when she looked at the others, she saw that the others were giving pleading looks as well. She knew they didn't want to have to involve her, but this was Chronicle, and they all have figured out that he had some special connection with her. They just didn't know exactly what, or if they did, they had a hard time admitting it.

Finally, she relented, "You're right. Chronicle needs our help. And if this is somehow my fault…" She didn't finish the sentence as memories she thought were nightmares flashed in her mind, namely the ones she still remembered when Discord had forcibly corrupted her.

Applejack placed a hoof on her shoulder and she calmed down, then the earth pony turned to the two purple unicorns. "Well, we need some kinda plan first. I have to admit I often took Chronicle for granted since he was always on our side. But now that we have to fight 'im, I'm beginnin' to see just how dangerous he can be."

"And that's exactly why I called you here," said Mystic. "We need to gather everything we know about how he fights, and form our strategy from that."

"And if you hadn't, maybe Twilight would've," added Pinkie.

"Maybe. Now let's get thinking."

TS—A—RD—R—F—PP—MS—TS—A—RD—R—F—PP—MS

The next day, early afternoon…

Chronicle was busy testing his magic shot's firing rate at the Discord statue, which he had propped up at a corner of the training range, when he sensed something make a loud knock into his barrier. Glancing to his right, he saw his friends slamming their hooves into it, knocking but ready to ram. There were circles of varying sizes—all big enough for a pony to stand in—on the ground, set. Conveniently, he would be able to use them as "traps".

_Traitors,_ he thought, having checked on them via Surveillance and found out that they were planning on fighting him. _Hah, like they even could. They're gonna regret messing with me._

Facing them, he said, "I'm giving you one chance to leave and not bother me until I'm done!" They responded with another pounding. "So, you want to get in so bad, huh?" He made a steely game face and flared his horn blade. "Well, **come and get it!**" He dispelled the barrier—just as the intruders were about to ram it, making them stumble over. The blue unicorn wasn't able to press his advantage though as he noticed that a bigger barrier had been set around his own.

He would later find out that Twilight had set it up prior, also adding a spell that would conceal everything that went on inside, because things were about to get ugly, and they didn't want anybody else to see it.

Chronicle knocked himself out of his surprise when he saw Spike trying to bring himself to breathe fire at him. He sneered, grabbed him via telekinesis, said, "You shouldn't have hesitated," then hurled him at the incoming ponies. "For I sure shall not!"

He unsheathed his 'blade' and—as Spike was 'caught' by Twilight—delivered a series of blows, striking them all—his charge, her assistant, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Mystic Shield, Pinkie Pie, Rarity—save Fluttershy, whom he just 'grabbed' and then 'hurled' away from the fight. As she slammed into the wall, he winced for a moment as he saw her collide into it **hard**, then crash to the ground, but only a moment.

"How dare you!" yelled Rainbow as she zoomed straight for his face. He countered by using the tether spell to grab her, then spin around with her while keeping the 'tether' short.

"If she doesn't come back, that's all she's getting." He then 'let go' of her, sending her slamming through one of the fences. "As for the rest of you, you're gonna get a tougher beating unless you back down now." Suddenly, he found himself bucked from behind and was sent tumbling. As he rolled, he saw that Applejack had somehow got into range to kick him. Assuming (correctly, as he was told later) that Twilight was now capable of teleporting others, he quickly got on his feet…just in time to see Mystic fire a magic shot.

He blocked that off with a quick panel barrier before feeling a kick to his gut and knocked up a bit before crashing to the ground. He did now know who it was that attacked him, but instantly teleported away to escape any further attacks.

Chronicle emerged just outside the training range, but still within the bounds of the barrier, and did a quick analysis of the area as he summoned a few magical clones. Rarity was just exiting a martial arts stance, Rainbow was already up, Twilight was in a defensive stance, Applejack has pulled her lasso out, Mystic was looking at him, Spike was on his feet, and Pinkie was nowhere to be seen.

With only battle instinct as his guide, he flash-stepped back…barely avoiding a pounce from the party pony, and blasted her with a beam of magic, sending her flying into the tree even as his clones started firing magic shots at his opponents.

"Oh no," gasped Mystic as he, Twilight, and Rarity erected force fields to repel Chronicle's attacks. Applejack was on standby, knowing that now wasn't a good time to let loose her lasso.

"What is it?" winced the other purple unicorn as she saw Pinkie crash into the tree's branches.

"That glint in his eyes. He's in a state of combat hyper-competence. It means he's completely 'in the zone' and is taking this fight very seriously. He's gonna be harder to reach out in that state."

"What should we do, then?"

"I don't know." _Strategy isn't really my thing, to be honest._ "All we **can** do now is continue as planned, but **hit harder**. He won't go easy on us, so neither should we!"

They then saw Rainbow attempt to ram them from the side, but the clones—all four of them—deftly flash-stepped out of the way, one of them teleporting, and the real one charged forward.

Knowing that the girls weren't very experienced in battle, Mystic was on guard from rear attacks. He noticed the circles on the ground, but couldn't figure out what purpose Chronicle has for them. Assuming they were in his favor, he dragged his hooves to erase them while not looking like he was intentionally doing so. Just then, as Rainbow then flew straight at the charging one from behind, dodging the "shurikens" being launched by the other clones, two things happened.

First, the clone that teleported emerged at the wall with the 'weapons'…just as Mystic anticipated. The 'charger' jumped to scale the panel barrier, putting himself in the pegasus's path, then jumped **again**, going over Rainbow and immediately landing on her back. The one who was at the weapons 'picked up' a frying pan and trashcan lid.

As the pegasus attempted to shake off whom she knew was the real Chronicle, the clone below confronted Mystic, ready to smack him upside in the head. Before charging though, he did a "backhand" smack with the lid…on Spike, who was coming up from his left. The purple stallion opened fire, but his shots were effortlessly deflected by the two weapons. Just as the clone went close, a lasso wrapped itself around his neck, and pulled…instantly dissipating him.

As the trashcan lid and frying pan fell to the ground, Mystic turned to face Applejack and nodded a "thank you". She seemed to be about to tilt her hat in a "you're welcome" when she gasped, "Look out!"

He wasn't able to heed the warning as the two who were in the air earlier crashed on top of him, Pinkie Pie with them. Chronicle instantly teleported before anyone else could do anything and his clones did likewise. With no more "shurikens" bombarding them, Rarity and Twilight lowered the barrier. The Chronicles then appeared right at the wall of weapons, each of them picking up an item. One of them had a tome, one the shovel, one the hammer, and one the xiphos. Two more were summoned and they 'picked up' a piece of fence and a broken bottle.

Everypony gulped at the sight of the sword as they regrouped (sans Fluttershy, who was apparently still out). While it certainly looked dull from disuse, a sword was still a very dangerous weapon, especially since that was its primary purpose. The four of them marched forward in an intimidating manner, 'swinging' their weapons about.

"Oh dear," grunted Mystic as he picked up the frying pan and trashcan lid and gave them to Rarity and Twilight respectively, only for the former to decline. "One on one, girls. Spike, choose who you're tagging along with." The dragon instantly went at Twilight's side, and then the six ponies charged, the Chronicles doing the same.

Pinkie bounded over "Broken Bottle", then instantly dropped on top of him, dissipating what turned out to be a clone. However, a circle below her began to glow with magic and she found herself utterly immobilized.

Applejack instantly 'disarmed' "Shovel" of his item by grabbing it with her mouth as he swung it, thankfully getting past the metal end, then bucking him as she spun from that move, getting rid of him as well. She then looked down and noticed the circles drawn on the ground. One close by began to glow and her right legs on top of it were pinned there.

Rarity charged at "Piece of Fence", then—as he made to swing with it—performed a forward flip, raising her hind legs into the air and over herself. Just before the fence could strike her forelegs, the force of her jump whisked them off the ground as her right hind leg slammed itself down on his head, dissipating him. She landed on her rump, a bit disappointed that the one she attacked wasn't the real one and so would've been able to execute a cleaner landing. At the same time though, she was relieved as well, as she didn't actually hurt **hurt** him.

Rainbow ran straight for "Hammer", her wings flapping as she closed in. At a set moment, she instantly zipped forward, tackling—and dissipating—him. She immediately stopped right on top of a drawn circle, a bit confused. _The real Chronicle should've seen that coming._ Before she knew it, the circle began to glow and she was bound down to it. No amount of flapping her wings was able to pull her out.

Twilight and "Tome" were exchanging magic blasts at each other, the latter having slowed down, and both were blocking with their items. The unicorn mare was hesitant, especially since a reading tool was being used as a shield. Spike wasn't however as he ran ahead, reaching the suspected clone and blasting him from under the book with a fire breath. Just after "Tome" dissipated from the attack, the dragon said, "I can't hesitate, not for my friends…"

Twilight then looked around and saw the circles on the ground, then gasped at seeing some of them glow, those rendering her friends pinned down them in the process. "The circles…binding circles!" Levitating the pan, she went over to them and began erasing the circles, which weakened their holding power and eventually released them. She also got Rarity, who was thankfully not 'bound', to do the same with the piece of fence. Spike was already following suit.

C—TS—S—A—RD—R—F—PP—MS

Erstwhile…

_Hmm…I'm guessing Chronicle's state of hyper-competence is sapping those of his clones,_ Mystic thought as he engaged with "Xiphos", whom he guessed was the real one. He was swinging the pan against the sword, making sure it hit flat-end. He also noticed that his co-teacher was actually meaning to hit with the broad side and not the edges.

"Chronicle! I know you're in there!" Mystic cried out as he made sure of his footing and glimpsed Spike and the other two unicorns get to work on the circles. "Stop this madness right now!"

"You speak as if I've been mind-controlled. Well I'm not," he replied as the two continued clashing. "If I had been, or even can, I wouldn't be hurting like this in the first place!" Chronicle managed to find an opening and lashed out his left foreleg, having conjured the tether spell during the conversation. The magical rope snagged Mystic by the leg and he was tripped up, then the tether lashed like a whip and he was sent tumbling forward while flying backward.

That's when he noticed his other opponents surrounding him. They hadn't charged in yet (either one by one or all at once) due to risking 'friendly fire'. The moment Mystic was out of the way however, Spike and Applejack charged. Thinking and casting fast, he added a "magical tether" to his tail, 'placed' the one on his head to his horn, and snagged the two with them.

He began to spin around, taking the dragon and earth pony in tow and swinging them to dissuade the others from approaching, also shooting sporadically in the air to keep Rainbow from attacking from above and even blasting away Pinkie whenever she attempts to pounce without jumping beforehoof. After a while, he dismissed his tethers, hurling Applejack at the pegasus and the dragon at Rarity. The speedster was pushed back upon catching the farmpony while the white unicorn had it easier with 'slowing' Spike's velocity via telekinesis, then setting him down.

"Bring it on!" the blue unicorn called, both as a dare and as an attempt to dissuade them from this insanity.

Mystic answered by aiming his horn at him and "unsheathing" a blade of magic from it. This was effortlessly swerved this pathetic attempt at the "magic horn blade" as it attempted to strike him.

"I've seen you fight before, and we both know that you're nowhere near as athletic as—" He found himself cut off when the noose of a lasso found itself tied around his neck. The force of the pull made him rear up on his hind legs, and he was also choking.

As it was, Applejack, quickly recovered, was right behind him, and was the one pulling the lasso. "Darn," she muttered through her teeth. "I didn't wanna do this…"

Mystic backed up, went over to Spike, and said, "Someone should check on Fluttershy. She's been out for too long. I'm sure we need that Stare more than ever."

"Why are you asking me?" whispered the dragon as he saw his crush close in on the attack.

"You're not exactly long-range, and frankly, out of all of us, you're the least skilled in fighting."

Spike grumbled. "All right." With that, he went off to where Fluttershy had landed. Upon arriving there, he saw that she was already awake and standing, but was confronted by a Chronicle clone, who seemed to be just staring her down, and it was working. The dragon went up at the clone from behind, then unleashed a breath of fire…but the clone conjured a barrier _just_ in time.

The clone turned around and unsheathed his horn blade. Thankfully for him, Fluttershy was still frightened enough not to take the chance to do a back attack. Spike shuddered a bit, then steeled himself as his claws heated up. _This is gonna suck._

C—TS—S—A—RD—R—F—PP—MS

While Spike engaged with the clone guarding Fluttershy, Rarity galloped toward the real Chronicle and positioned herself (upright) to deliver a sweeping kick. It wasn't a literal one as that would mean dragging her foot along the dirt (!), but it was low enough to do its intended purpose. At least it would have had it hit; Chronicle had backed away, evading the leg and forcing Applejack to back up as well to retain her hold, then cast a barrier around his neck during that time to prevent her from choking him. He could easily teleport away, but he deemed it way too easy.

Besides, it would permit him to try battling a different way, now that during this maneuver somepony managed to tie another lasso that wound around his horn. While hitting the horn with something cancelled whatever spell he'd be casting, applying pressure to it like this made it very difficult to even perform a spell. Tying a ribbon around it won't do a thing, but a lasso would so long as it was pulling against his horn.

The white unicorn moved about so that they now faced each other, then assumed a martial arts stance. Mystic and Twilight attempted to shoot at him, but he warded them off with barriers. He then put up another atop himself and intercepted yet another pounce from Pinkie, who then jumped away. "Come on!" he sneered. "Let's see what you can do!" Accepting his challenge, she attacked.

What he pulled off surprised them, particularly Rarity and Mystic. Any punch she did was deflected with a smooth pushing motion at the leg. Any swing to his head he ducked under. His response to any forward kick was to turn to the side, catch her leg with his forelegs, then push so that she would fall on her back. Any kick to his side he would catch, then twist to make her fall to the ground and at risk of him bending and breaking her leg. The barriers he set up prevented her from attacking him from another angle or from anyone trying to intervene. They were also close enough to his body so that no sudden back attacks would work effectively.

"Those moves…they're from Ebon Belt's aikido!" gasped Mystic. "I didn't know he took his classes as well."

"I don't," Chronicle replied. "I learned it back home from my father. Never saw its usefulness until now." He then addressed Rarity as she got up from falling over yet again. "Not that good a karateka, or just hesitant? Either way…" He **then** decided to teleport, banishing his barriers as well before re-emerging at a corner of the "training range" away from them.

"Oh great, he's going crazy." _Like all of his friends have at some point I might add, if what he told me about them is correct. Applebuck season, stage fright, panic concerning the Princess, too much attention, friendship insecurity, and that alleged incident at the Gala…_ "First he wants us to leave, and now he's practicing on us."

"Can't see why I can't do both." Chronicle poised as if to fire magic shots, but nothing seemed to come. They quickly realized that he was shooting "wind blasts", particularly when one knocked off Applejack's hat as she reeled back her lasso.

Mystic was quick to erect a wall of magic to stop the attacks while Rainbow decided to fly over it and charge, soon zooming around Chronicle in a circle, trying to decide on whether or not to form a tornado, but given the barrier's restrictions—even if it permitted wind to go through—it was difficult. Chronicle didn't give her the chance as he 'lashed out' a magic tether from his tail and around her wings, making her crash.

"You boasted that you've beaten a honkin' metal titan once. (4) I don't care if that's true; I'm your size, I'm an accurate shooter, and I'm far from sluggish." At the corner of his eye, he saw Applejack get teleported to his side and ready to deliver a buck. This time however, he was ready and flash-stepped a few inches to the side so that the attack would fall short.

Meanwhile, Spike successfully defeated the clone with a fire breath. But not before suffering a few slashes from the horn blade and exchanging claw slashes in return. On the outside, he was relatively unharmed, but on the inside he was hurting a great deal.

"Oh, Spike!" she squeaked, feeling guilty for getting him hurt. "I'm sorry I didn't get back with the others. The Chronicle clone you just sent away scared me from doing so."

While still wincing a bit from the pain, he managed to speak coherently. "Well, we need your help. Chronicle's currently trashing us right now, and we're running out of options. We need that Stare of yours, but we also need a plan. He certainly knows how dangerous it is."

"You're right. I think I got an idea. But…I need help. Are you…"

"Yeah, I'm fine." The dragon approached the pegasus so she can explain in hushed tones. Spike nodded a couple of times as he listened. Once she was done, he asked, "You really think it will work?"

She gave a solemn sigh. "It has to."

C—TS—S—A—RD—R—F—PP—MS

Back in the training range, things were looking bleak for Mystic and the rest. Right now, Chronicle had got two ponies snagged in magic tethers as he spun around, Rainbow Dash and Applejack, with Rarity clinging onto the latter. This maneuver kept Mystic and Twilight at a distance and also kept them from shooting in risk of friendly fire. It also dissuaded Pinkie from just pouncing again, after the many times it didn't work.

"Just how is he able to spin so fast and keep himself focused after?" Twilight pondered to herself. "Sure, he's able to swing it about in different directions without any disorientation, but spinning at that speed should make even him—WHOA!"

She jumped out of the way as Rarity lost her grip and was almost sent flying straight at her. The white unicorn ended up rolling on the ground before landing on a haystack. Chronicle soon dismissed the tether he had on the farmpony and she plowed through the fence from the velocity. By the time he 'let go' of Rainbow, she was going so fast that when she was hurtled to the library wall, she smashed through the wood and was instantly unconscious upon landing on the interior's floor.

As he slowed in his spinning, not even feeling the slightest bit dizzy, he performed a back flip…and landed on top of Pinkie Pie before she could sneak-attack him. He then conjured a "binding circle" to ensure that she wouldn't be able to pull off any of her tricks. Then, as a stroke of luck, he cast the power transfer spell on the two purple unicorns, taking their magic for his own.

Unlike with Nightmare Moon, this time he was exerting a good amount of effort on the draining, forcing his targets to reel over and slump to the ground as they felt their magic be absorbed.

"Chronicle…" Twilight pleaded weakly.

"I gave you all your chance to back out. You chose not to. And now you're gonna pay the pri—" He was abruptly cut off when something struck him from the left. He had become so focused on draining that he failed to see Fluttershy pounce him.

The two rolled on the ground for a good while, and somehow at the end of it she was on top. For reasons he was unable to comprehend, with only her hooves, she prevented him from pulling away. Before he could cast a spell, he felt a dragon's claw wrap itself around his horn, nullifying his magic. This was enough to make him start struggling. He also closed his eyes, taking the Stare into account.

"Spike! Grab a leg!" he heard her say. A second later, he felt another claw wrap itself around one and pinned it down. "I'm sorry…" Her words seemed to be pained, and five seconds later, he was punched in the gut. The force of the hit was surprisingly strong he cried out in pain and opened his eyes instinctively—and was immediately subjected to the full power of Fluttershy's dreaded Stare.

If he thought seeing her (or his father) getting really angry was scary, this was worse. He could actually feel himself be literally paralyzed by fear, even as her eyes were welling up with tears. It was extremely difficult to think of **anything** else, and his guilt on seeing her have to do this to him didn't help. He figured that the Stare wasn't a mere psychological effect, but also some sort of non-unicorn magic.

"Chronicle! Please stop this!" she cried out. "Don't you see you're hurting your friends with what you're doing?! I know how much you hate Discord for what he did! I know because I feel the same! When I was corrupted by him, I was pretty much trapped inside my own mind, helpless as I was forced to do things I didn't want to do! When Twilight restored me, I wanted to believe it was all just a nightmare!"

The Stare faltered after that as she closed her eyes, steeling herself for what she has to say next. Chronicle, however, didn't immediately get up, his stamina drained, and his mind losing the fog that was his obsession to train himself. By this point, Spike had let go of his leg and backed away.

"Revenge isn't going to solve anything," she continued. "It may feel like a good thing at first, but it's not. Maybe it might bring you peace, but more than often it will leave your life feeling flat and empty. And if you continue down your current path, you might one day find yourself as bad as Discord, in terms of atrocity if not power. Worse, there may be those connected to him who will then decide to pursue vengeance against you, and before you know it, we have a cycle of revenge.

"You have a lot to live for. Don't throw it all away for this. You have friends who have suffered as you have. Maybe they can't compare to yours, but you're not supposed to do that. Friends help one another. Friends…" Fluttershy couldn't say anymore as she finally broke down to tears and hugged him, who hugged her back. "I'm so sorry! I'm sorry I had to do this!"

With his mind finally clear thanks to all this, he finally replied. "No, I should be the one who's sorry. I ended up forcing you to do this to me. All of you. After I failed to protect my friends, then failed to even get revenge for them, I was left me with a very bad feeling, even though we did defeat him in the end.

"I wanted to better myself so that I would be more prepared the next time. I couldn't let it happen again. Not to my friends, most of all you." By this time, everypony else save Rainbow has recovered and slowly gathered around the two. "You're the second most tenderhearted person I know, the first being my mother. You're also strong and dangerous when the ones you care about are in danger, also like my mother. A clear touch of steel under that silk, to. For Discord to take that all away, and turn you into an unsympathetic █████…it drove all reason out of my head."

"Wh-what are you trying to say?"

"It started ever since that incident with the red dragon, when we saw you stand up to it for the first time. I was utterly impressed with such force you were able to exude. Since then, I felt like I needed to make you stronger both physically and spiritually without changing your sweet personality. Before I knew it, you've become more than a friend to me." He closed his eyes as he struggled to let out his next words. "I'M IN LOVE WITH YOU, FLUTTERSHY!"

This anguished declaration elicited shock, from everypony in varying degrees, save Rarity seemed gleeful at this confession. Pinkie's gasp that followed was twice as long as the one she made during Twilight's arrival at Ponyville.

Chronicle opened his eyes again, tears beginning to come out. "And I hate the fact that it took **Discord** for me to finally realize and accept it. I was also afraid of what my family and their friends would say. It's against the rules of my…" He lowered his voice to a whisper; Mystic doesn't know of the cross-world incident to Solaris Equestria. "…secret mission." He resumed normal tone. "I was just too scared to start, and that's another thing that sets me apart from my twin sister." _My family doesn't normally accept its members starting relationships before…introducing the outsider and inducting them. There's also the fact that being a Story Crew Field Operative, I would eventually have to leave you, and that's worse._ He failed to let out any more words as he embraced her and, for the second time, cried.

During this time, Rainbow Dash crawled out of the hole in the library she was blown through, ready to continue fighting. However she stopped short on seeing her friends in a wide circle around Fluttershy, who was crying. And Chronicle was below her…also crying. Confused, she took a look at the others, and saw that they were no longer fighting.

She looked back at the two in the center, and was both a bit disappointed and relieved, disappointed because they won the fight without her, and relieved that they even won at all. It was there that everypony realized that the obsession has finally gone from Chronicle's mind, the moment they saw him cry.

C—TS—S—A—RD—R—F—PP—MS

Sunset, inside the library…

_Dear Princess Celestia, _

_I've learned a very important life lesson. Revenge is a very costly and sterile thing. Sometimes, when times are desperate, it's all you have that can keep you going. But in all other cases, it can ruin your life and leave you empty, even ostracize you from the life you do have left._

_That's where friends, true friends and not "enablers", come in. They're there to comfort you, to remind you that there is more in life to live for, even knock you to your senses if need be. Many times mine can be quite the idiots (and I take it upon myself to fix that), but their positive traits are why I haven't given up on them. It's worth the effort._

_Twilight Sparkle's stalwart bodyguard, Chronicle_

Once Spike was done writing the letter, he rolled it up, then blew his green fire into it, sending it to the Princess. Everybody was gathered at the ground floor, next to the table that had overturned when Rainbow crashed into it during the earlier fight.

"Girls, Mystic, I would like to apologize for my rash behavior for the past few days," Chronicle said. "It was…inexcusable. My contract swore me to protect you, and I failed that by fighting you all. How could I have let myself act this way?"

"It's okay, Chronicle," assured Mystic. "It's in the past. We all went in knowing we were bound to get hurt."

"At the very least, we now know just how dangerous you can really be to any**body** who gets in your way," Pinkie said, her tone not matching the sentence.

"After that fight, I'm glad to say you're on our side," said Applejack. "We all are."

"There's still that statue though," Twilight pointed out skeptically. "The obsession seems to have started there."

"No. I would've fallen to my obsession even without it, trust me," Chronicle replied. "I still need to train anyway. I just have to avoid overworking myself like Applejack once did."

He got a wary look from the farmpony. "Hey."

"Come to think of it, the two situations seemed to be similar, except I was only harming myself, and excessive force was required to put a stop to me."

"How will we know that you won't get obsessed again?" Rainbow asked somewhat worriedly. "I don't think we can fight you a second time."

"You won't, I assure you. 'Sides, I was just subjected to the Stare. I do **not** want to experience that again. I was incapable of thinking anything else, not even my obsession, and that was what succeeded in bringing me to my senses where others have failed." He turned to the one who did it. "Thank you, Fluttershy."

It's weird to be thanked for scaring someone, but the yellow pegasus knew it was sincere, so she just nodded her head.

"Come on, everypony!" Pinkie suddenly said. "Group hug!" She gathered everyone so that they were around the friend they had 'rescued' today, further warming him in more ways than one.

"Thanks again, guys, for saving me," Chronicle said. _Violence may not always be the best answer, but that only means there are a few situations where it is._

SCFIM—SCFIM—SCFIM—SCFIM—SCFIM—SCFIM

(1) In my story, _Luna Eclipsed_ takes place during the "Chapters" series before "The Return of Harmony" arc. I'll do that after "Lesson Zero". What is P3? I'll do that when I do "Luna Eclipsed".

(2) Pronk is a real word. It's the name for Pinkie Pie's bouncing.

(3) If you're wondering about the 'elemental crystals', the paranoia made Chronicle forget about them.

(4) The "honkin' metal titan" is an allusion to a certain _Death Battle_ episode.

nightelf37: I'm sorry if the fight didn't look as good as I hoped it would be. That's what I get for trying to create a fight scene using characters who are mostly non-violent and/or not very experienced in fighting. At least in my Kingdom Heart Remake series, almost all of my characters are armed and willing to fight. It also helped that they were fighting Mooks.

This is also my first time writing a romantic development by the way, so tips on how I can develop it further are welcome. If you hate the pairing however, please don't express it; I know Mane Six/OC shippings are sometimes frowned upon. I'll admit I was listening to Mandy Moore's "Cry", among many other love songs, when I wrote this.

Well, here's some good news. I'm returning to my usual format and will be using Season 2 as a "base". I won't be starting at "Lesson Zero" though. Not yet. See ya on Third!

_To Be Continued in: "Shisno Chronicles: Friendship is Still Magic"_


End file.
